Abstract
This paper interrogates the extent to which imaginaries of climate and ecological breakdown attend to the memories, knowledges, and experiences of communities already impacted by histories of racism, colonialism, and poverty. Drawing on insights from Black studies and decolonial thinking, the article reflects on how the causes and effects of anthropogenic climate change can be mapped onto geographies of racialised violence and social dispossession. Specific emphasis is given to Rio de Janeiro, notably its port area, a geographical space where future-oriented narratives remain oblivious to the city’s history of anti-Black violence and Indigenous genocide. In parallel, the paper looks at the recently built Museum of Tomorrow and its public representations of the Anthropocene. Overall, the article contends that pluralising accounts of the Anthropocene might offer alternative epistemic entry points for understanding and interrupting the mounting ecological catastrophe.
Highlights
This paper discusses forms of racial segregation, marginalisation, and erasure in a time of accelerating climate change and ecological decline
I centre my discussion on Rio de Janeiro, a city marked by the historical violence of transatlantic slavery and the genocide of Indigenous people
Following the idea that ‘theorisations of the Anthropocene have mostly elided the thematic of race’ (Baldwin, 2017: 294; see Pulido, 2018; Simpson, 2018; Yusoff, 2018), this paper has argued that the causes and effects of anthropogenic climate change can be mapped onto geographies of racialised violence and social dispossession
Summary
This paper discusses forms of racial segregation, marginalisation, and erasure in a time of accelerating climate change and ecological decline. Connections between racial formations and the designation of the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch (e.g. Baldwin and Erickson, 2020; Eichen, 2020; Saldanha, 2020; Vergès, 2017; Yusoff, 2018), this article considers how the causes and effects of climate and environmental change can be mapped onto geographies of racialised violence and social dispossession.
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