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Abstract:
The description of the Anthropocene as a new geological era of humankind prompts many discussions and reveals the challenge to rethink the world we thought we knew. At the same time, the new vision of a human-nature entangled world also bears important opportunities. This chapter engages in the twofold effort to address, first, how the discourse of the Anthropocene has entered one of the central sub-disciplines of International Relations and political science, security studies. Thereby, this chapter critically contrasts the security conceptions between different worldviews of Anthropocene thinking (a dynamic interrelated human-nature world) and Holocene thinking (natural processes that act as a background for human action). Second, this chapter scrutinises the contributions that the critical approaches to security studies have on the Anthropocene debate. This chapter outlines these opportunities along the threat-response logic and the specific focus on central values and fears in relation to the Anthropocene discourse and concludes that developing an Anthropocene thinking of security can decisively foster a research agenda that more explicitly focuses on the most fundamental questions for humankind in our human-nature entangled world. © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Thomas Hickmann, Lena Partzsch, Philipp Pattberg and Sabine Weiland; individual chapters, the contributors.
