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DraftchapterfromDavidChandler,OntopoliticsintheAnthropocene:AnIntroductiontoMapping,SensingandHacking(Routledge,forthcoming2018)

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Chapter1Introduction:AffirmingtheAnthropoceneIntroductionThisbook is ananalysisof theontopolitical assumptionsof theAnthropoceneandengages theseassumptions throughestablishingand introducing the reader to thethree distinct modes of governance grounded upon them: Mapping, Sensing andHacking. 1 It considers each mode as providing a distinct conceptualisation ofgovernance in a world framed as complex, entangled and unpredictable. 2 Thearticulationofthesedistinctmodesofgovernanceismyownattempttoparseandto clarify the, often unclear, forms throughwhich political thought expresses andreflects new ways of developing policy, of engaging with problems, of derivingknowledge andof thinking aboutpolitical agency in the21st century. This is not awork onontology, therefore it does not assertwhat theAnthropocene is orwhathumansareorarenot.Itoperateswithinthedisciplineofinternationalrelations,interms of its focus being the new forms of governance that Anthropoceneontopolitics are understood to engender. Its concern is a critical one; the bookanalysesthesemodesforthepurposesofunderstandingtheirinnerlogicsandtheirconsequences for thepolicies andpracticesof governance. I donot seek toarguethat these modes necessarily operate in a pure form, without overlaps orinterconnections, but I do suggest that heuristically drawing out their distinctivelogicsisusefulforunderstandingtheirdevelopment,theirlimitsandtheiraporiasorcontradictions. I do not advocate for any particular one of thesemodes, nor theunderlyingontopoliticalclaimsseentonecessitatethem,butseektoexaminethemtoclarifywhatisatstakeintheontopoliticsoftheAnthropocene.The threegovernancemodesofMapping,SensingandHackingclaimtostart fromthe empirical reality of the world as it appears rather than from assumptions ofmodernistprogress,universalknowledgeorlinearcausality.Theontopoliticalclaiminformingthesemodes,istheassertionthatintheAnthropocenetheworldismuchlessaddressablebymodernistconstructionsandassumptions;itismorecontingent,plural and complex: thereby less amenable to the applications of technologicalsolutionism’3or‘lessonslearned’,whichcanbegeneralisedandapplied.Eachmodereflectsa shift from liberalormodernistunderstandings towardsanaffirmationoftheAnthropocene,bywhichImeangovernancediscoursesbecomingmoreathomewithdiscursive framingsofcontingencyandcomplexity.Withthisaffirmativeshift,there is a sense that there is something positive in the realisation that theAnthropocenecannotbesecured,governedorengagedwithintraditionalways.Aswill be discussed below, this affirmation of the Anthropocene can be seen inMapping(designingindirectinterventionsbasedontracingormappingassemblagesofinteractiveemergence),inSensing(withtheboostingofBigDataandtheInternetof Things as able to provide real time responses to ‘pre-event’ problems), and inHacking (with new creative ways of engaging on the basis of repurposing,recompositioning and finding the play in already existing arrangements andpractices).

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Thisintroductorychapterisorganizedinfivesections.Thenextsectionprovidesanintroduction to the concept of theAnthropocene andwhat is considered to be atstake in thediscussionof theAnthropoceneas anewgeological epochand,moreimportantly,asmarkingtheendofmodernistviewsofprogress.Thesecondsectionintroduces the idea that the Anthropocene should be affirmed rather than beingseen to be problematic and the following sections introduce the implications forgoverning in the Anthropocene without the epistemological and ontopoliticalassumptions of modernity. Three arising modes of governance, grounded on theontopolitical assumptions of the Anthropocene, are then identified with distinctlogics:Mapping,SensingandHacking.Thefinalsectionoutlinesthecontentsofthefollowingchapters.ANewEpochThe Anthropocene - a concept coined by Eugene Stormer in the 1980s andpopularisedbyPaulCrutzeninthe2000s4-isadisputedterm,whichreferstoanewgeologicalepoch,5inwhichhumanactivityisseentohaveprofoundandirreparableeffects on the environment.6This attention to a new epoch in which humanityappearstohaveimpactedtheearthinwayswhichmeanthatnaturalprocessescanno longer be separated from historical, social, economic and political effects haspowerfully challenged the modernist understanding of the nature/culture divide,separatingsocialandnaturalscience,destabilisingtheassumptionsofboth.Naturecannolongerbeunderstoodasoperatingonfixedornaturallaws,whilepoliticsandculturecannolongerbeunderstoodasoperatinginaseparatesphereofautonomyand freedom. These assumptions, in both spheres, were central to modernistconstructionsofEnlightenmentprogress,whichisnowseentonolongerexistortohave always been problematic. 7 Jeremy Davies argues that: ‘The idea of theAnthropocenemakes this state of being in between epochs the starting point forpolitical thinking.’8AsBruno Latour,oneof themostprolific andwidely influentialtheorists articulating the Anthropocene as a breakwithmodernity, highlights: thefact that it is science itself that appears to lead the questioning of modernistconstructionsof theworld is highly significant, considering the impact this has forwaysinwhichwecanimaginepoliticsandgovernance: But what is even more extraordinary is that it's the brainchild of stern, earnest and sun-tanned geologists who, until recently, had been wholly unconcerned by the tours and detours of the humanities. No postmodern philosopher, no reflexive anthropologist, no liberal theologian, no political thinker would have dared to weigh the influence of humans on the same historicalscaleasrivers,floods,erosionandbiochemistry.9ThisbookisnotdirectlyconcernedwithdebatesanddiscussionsaroundthedatingoftheAnthropoceneasageologicalera,10whethertostartwith1492withColumbusand the European holocaust in the Americas,11in 1784 with the invention of thesteam engine by James Watt, that ushered in the industrial revolution, with theexplosionoftheatombombin1945orwiththe‘GreatAcceleration’,thespreadof

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industrialization across the world since. 12 The conclusion of the discussion,regardless of dating, is a shared one: that today human history cannot beunderstoodasseparatetogeologicalhistory: The Anthropocene, as the reunion of human (historical) time and Earth (geological)time,betweenhumanagencyandnon-humanagency,givesthe lie to this – temporal, ontological, epistemological and institutional – great dividebetweennatureandsociety…ItsignalsthereturnoftheEarth intoa world thatWestern industrialmodernityon thewhole represented to itself asabovetheearthlyfoundation.(emphasisinoriginal)13Natural time isno longer somehowslow in comparison to the speedofhumanorculturaltime.‘Whatissureisthatglaciersappeartoslidequicker,icetomeltfaster,species to disappear at a greater speed, than the slow, gigantic,majestic, inertialpaceofpolitics,consciousnessandsensibilities.’14Natureorthe‘environment’isnolongertobeseenasmerelythe‘background’,butisitselfa‘protagonist’.15Thus,thedivision between agential ‘man’ and passive ‘nature’ is fundamentally challenged,withcatastrophiceventswhichseemedtobeexceptionalorhighlyimprobableinthepast, becoming increasingly regular, even in the advanced West: ‘…in the era ofglobal warming, nothing is really far away; there is no place where the orderlyexpectations of bourgeois life hold unchallenged sway.’ 16 As Amitav Ghoshpowerfully notes, expectations of normality, balance and order that defined themodern world view, appear from today’s vantage point to be a terrible error orhubris: as carried to the point of ‘great derangement’.17There is a contemporaryconsensusthat:‘Therecanbenomoretalkofalinearandinexorableprogress’.18ForTimothyMorton:‘Inanageofglobalwarming,thereisnobackground,andthusthere is no foreground. It is the end of the world, since worlds depend onbackgroundsandforegrounds.’19Whatwastakenforgrantedisnowrevealedtobemuchmorecontingent,fragileandunpredictable;forMorton,theworldisnolongeran object, fixed, passive and external to us, thus there can be no such thing as ahuman‘lifeworld’shapedwithinthis.20AsLatourstates,thepositionsarereversed,thebackgroundbecomesforeground:‘whatwasuntilnowameredécorforhumanhistory isbecomingtheprincipalactor’.21Somuchsothat itcouldbesaidthattheAnthropocene does not just overcome the culture/nature divide, ‘it bypasses itentirely’:22 …everything that was part of the background has now melted into the foreground.There isnoenvironmentanymore,and thusno longeraneed for environmentalism.We are post-natural for good. With the end of the political epistemology of the past that insured the presence of an indisputableoutsidearbiter–namely,NatureknownbyScience–weareleft withoutalandandwithoutabodypolitic.23ThisbookisalsonotdirectlyconcernedwiththecausaldriversoftheAnthropoceneand debates over whether responsibility lies with the Enlightenment, withcapitalism, 24 with modernity, with mass consumerism, with the organisation,

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industrialization and commercialization of agriculture, with colonialism andimperialism, with economic theory, with the extraction of and dependency uponfossil fuels, with the rise of themilitary-industrial complex etc.25It fact it is oftenargued that the more narratives there are, ‘from many voices and many places,rather than a single narrative fromnowhere, from space or from the species’ themore the ‘black boxes of the Anthropocene discourse’ can be opened andrepoliticized.26Regardless of where authors stand on the allocation of blame orresponsibility for the contemporary condition - or whether it is namedAnthropocene,Capitalocene27orbysomeotherconcept,suchasDonnaHaraway’s‘Chthulucene’ - the descriptive and analytical conclusions fall into a similar set ofontologicalframings.Whateverthedrivingforces,theconclusioniscommonacrossthem,thatthereisnolongeraseparationbetweencultureandnature:thereisnolongeran‘outside’oran‘away’.Whathappens‘sticks’withus,likeStyfroamcupsorplasticbagsthatstayintheenvironmentanddonotdegradeinahumanlifetime.28Theendofthenature/culturedivideisthe‘endoftheworld’29asitwasconceivedinmodernity,orbythe‘moderns’(asLatouroftendescribesthosestillclingingtotheseunderstandings). 30 Thus the debate, as much as there is one about theAnthropocene, could be seen to be shifting away from a discussion about theexistence of the Anthropocene itself, and more about whether ‘modernity’ as aframework of knowing and governing ever actually existed. Bruno Latour hasfamously argued that ‘WeHaveNever BeenModern’,whereas for other theoristsmodernity as a rational and successful framework of reasoning is specificallychallenged by the appearance of the Anthropocene or the ‘intrusion of Gaia’.31Latourhas,however,beencriticizedonthebasisthat,inhisview,theAnthropocene,or theentanglementofhumanityandnature, isonlya recentdiscovery:plentyofnon-consensual pro-environmental voices have been raised in theWest32and thisposition also seems to dismiss the existence of a rich non-Western tradition ofthoughtwhichwasnever ‘modern’ in termsof thecentralityof theculture/naturedivide.33FortheconsiderationofnewwaysofgoverningintheAnthropocene,thekeypointis that theAnthropocene is understood topose fundamentally differentquestionsabout how we can know and how we can govern without the certainties andsignpostsofmodernity. Inthissense,thedeclarationoftheAnthropocenemarksavery different moment to the Club of Rome’s report that launched concerns ofenvironmentalismandovertheexhaustionofnaturalresourcesin1974.34AsStonerand Melanthopoulos state, it would be difficult to read back contemporaryreceptions of the Anthropocene into the past century, when the sense of humancapacity to regulate environment impactswasmuch stronger.35The power of theAnthropoceneliesnotmerelyintheattentiontotheimportanceofactingonclimatechange, but also in the context of responding to climate change without thetwentieth century’s confidence in modernity. As Rory Rowan notes: ‘TheAnthropocene is therefore not simply a disputed designation in geologicalperiodizationbutaphilosophicaleventthathasstrucklikeanearthquake,unsettlingthetectonicplatesofconceptualconvention.’36BrunoLatourargues:

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WhatmakestheAnthropoceneaclearlydetectablegoldenspikewaybeyond the boundary of stratigraphy is that it is the most decisive philosophical, religious, anthropological and… political concept yet produced as an alternativetotheverynotionsof‘Modern’and‘modernity’.37IsabelleStengerscaptureswelltheshiftatstake,inherargumentthatitis‘asifweweresuspendedbetweentwohistories’bothofwhichdescribetheworldinglobalandinterconnectedterms.38Inonehistory,governanceframeworksareclear,basedon clear evidence and with straightforward goals of economic growth and socialprogress.Theotherseemsmuchlessclearwithregardtowhatgovernancerequiresorhowtorespondtoongoingprocessesofchange.Inthissense,asHarawayargues,itmakesmoresensetoseetheAnthropoceneasa‘boundaryevent’ratherthananepoch: ‘TheAnthropocenemarks severediscontinuities;what comesafterwill notbelikewhatcamebefore.’39Latoureloquentlydescribeswhatisatstakeinthisshiftbeyondtheboundary,intherecognitionoftheAnthropocene: What is sodepressing in reading thedocumentsof the sub-commissionon stratigraphy, is that it runs throughexactly the same items you couldhave read in any 20th century listing of all the glorious things that humans have donein‘masteringnature,’exceptthattodaythegloryisgone,andboththe masterandtheslave–thatis,humansaswellasnature–havebeenmelted together andmorphed into strange new geological – I mean geostorical – forces.40This is echoed by Nigel Clark’s view that ‘the Anthropocene – viewed in all itsdisastrousness – confronts “the political” with forces and events that have thecapacity to undo the political, along with every other human achievement, byremovingtheverygroundsonwhichwemightconveneandstrategize’.41As Bonneuil and Fressoz state, the Anthropocene is not a transitory crisis: ‘theAnthropocene is a point of no return. It indicates a geological bifurcationwith noforeseeablereturntothenormalityoftheHolocene.’42CliveHamiltonwrites:‘itcannolongerbemaintainedthathumansmaketheirownhistory’.43Inthisrespect,theAnthropocene appears to confirm that we are living in an age of ‘manufactureduncertainty’or‘manufacturedrisk’; inwhichsocietalthreatscannolongerbeseenas external but rather are immanent to social processes 44 undermining themodernistseparationbetweensecurityreferentandsecuritythreat.45Itisheldthatmodernitycomesupagainstitsownlimitswiththeendoftheculture/naturedivide:the end of a ‘nature’ of laws and regularities somehow external to humaninteraction. The Anthropocene is an era of ‘multiple entanglements’ according toStengers, between natural or ‘non-human’ forces and human (in)action, or, asConnollydescribesthis,of‘entangledhumanism’.46Inthefaceofthisentanglement,continuing to rely on modernist epistemologies, leaving us ‘armed only with theresults of externalized and universal knowledge’ would be, we are informed, theroadto‘doom’.47

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In thismore complex, contingent and inter-relatedworld, the ‘reductionist’ causalconnections, generalisations, and ‘lessons learned’, which shaped the governingdiscoursesofmodernity,arenolongerseentobetenable.48Withoutthe‘outside’of‘nature’, counter positioned to the ‘inside’ of ‘culture’, new forms of bothinternational and domestic governance necessarily need to be ‘reflexive’ and‘adaptive’.49IsabelleStengerscallstheendofthisdivisionthe‘intrusionofGaia’,theintrusionofnaturalforcesintoeveryaspectofsocialandpoliticalgovernance: Theintrusionof…Gaia,makesamajorunknown,whichisheretostay,exist at the heart of our lives. This is perhaps what is most difficult to conceptualize:nofuturecanbeforeseeninwhichshewillgivebacktousthe libertyof ignoringher. It isnotamatterofa “badmoment thatwillpass,” followed by any kind of happy ending – in the shoddy sense of “problem solved.”50Thus,thelexiconofinternationalgovernanceisbeginningtocarrywithitanassertedrecognition of the Anthropocene as a fundamental challenge to previousepistemological and ontological assumptions about how we know and how wegovern/secureinaworldthatisnolongerperceivedasopentolineartemporalitiesofcause-and-effect.51AsLatourargues,thesystemoftheAnthropoceneorGaia‘isanything but unified or unifying’; it is ‘not a cybernetic system designed by anengineer’buttheproductofmultipledispersedandinteractingagencies,sothereisnosuchthingasthe‘balanceofnature’orthe‘wisdomofGaia’.52Wehavetherefore‘permanently entered a post-natural period’ where traditional science, based onstability, laws and regularities can no longer help negotiate the problem: ‘Climatescientists have been dragged into a post-epistemological situation that is assurprising to themas it is to the general public – both finding themselves thrown“outofnature”.’53TheonethingthatcriticalAnthropocenetheoristsagreeonisthattherecanbenotechnicalfixes.TheAnthropoceneisnotaproblemtobesolvedbutanopportunitytobegrasped.ThisdrivetoaffirmtheAnthropoceneisparticularlyclearinthefieldof international relations,where leadingtheoretical journals,suchastheEuropeanJournalofInternationalRelations,seemkeentoflagupcriticalworkthathighlightsthat theAnthropocene shouldnotbe confusedwith theproblemof ecologyor ofclimate change and thereby fitted into an extension of traditional modernistinternationalsecuritydiscourses.Forexample,MadeleineFaganargues: Ecologyoffersareorderingoftheworld,arecreationoftheworldasawhole, aneutralizingofthethreattologicandsenseposedbytheanthropocene…. Thismattersforthinkingaboutsecuritybecausetogivethemodernsubjecta home is to secure it; it is to reproduce the claims about universality and particularitythatconstitutethemodernsubject.54The Anthropocene challenges international relations’ discourses of security andstrategic thinking at the most fundamental level of the subject of security itself.Modernist assumptions of securing the human against the world are held to be

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precisely the problem that needs to be overcome.55It is precisely because theAnthropoceneisontopoliticallyconstructedasacritiqueofmodernistdiscoursesofproblem-solvingthattherecanbeno‘comicfaithintechnofixes,whethersecularorreligious’.56No pretence of geoengineering solutions ‘which will ensure that it ispossible to continue to extract and burn, without the temperature rising’.57Nopossibility of fixed relations capable of regulation in the imaginary of ‘spaceshipEarth’.58The ideaofahumanistormodernistsolution,positingthe ideaofa ‘goodAnthropocene’59isanathematothosewhoseektoaffirmtheAnthropoceneas‘afterthe world of modernity’. As Claire Colebrook states: ‘Any “good” Anthropocenewouldbepossibleonlybywayofcountless injustices’.60Themodernistperspectiveis seen as the ‘managerial variant’ of theAnthropocene,where the concept couldpotentiallybe capturedand ‘become theofficial philosophyof anew technocraticandmarket-orientedgeopower’:61 Whereasitshouldmeanacalltohumility,theAnthropoceneissummonedin supportofaplanetaryhubris… [exemplifiedby] theBreakthrough Institute, an eco-modernist think-tank that celebrates the death of nature and preachesa‘goodanthropocene’,oneinwhichadvancedtechnologywillsave theplanet…sentimentscharacteristicofearlyinfancy,lieatthebasisofsuch ‘post-nature’ discourse, participating in the dream of total absorption of natureintothecommercialtechnosphereofcontemporarycapitalism.62While for Bonneuil and Fressoz eco-modernism smacks of ‘early infancy’, CliveHamilton argues that this view of welcoming the Anthropocene epoch withimaginariesofgeoengineeringis‘reminiscentofBrian’ssongonthecrossattheendofMontyPython’sLifeofBrian.’63Forothers,suchasRichardGrusin,theimaginaryofthe‘heroicagencyofgeoengineering’ismerelyanotherfailedattempttoimpose‘manyof thesamemasculinistandhuman-centredsolutionsthathavecreatedtheproblemsinthefirstplace’.64SimonDalbyassertsthatanyattempttoproblem-solvein the manner of ‘contemporary earth system science syntheses of the humantransformationofthebiosphere…[withits]assumptionofseparationasthestartingpointforgoverningasupposedlyexternalrealmisnowsimplyuntenable.’65In response to this closure, new possibilities are held to be inherent in existingcommunal forms of living and socio-technological forms of interconnectivity andnetworked community, building on new ways of making connections and seeingrelationships.66It isthisneedforafluidawarenessofrelationsintheirspecificandmomentary context that has enabled the newmodes of governance that will beanalysedhere.ForAnthropoceneepistemologiesandontologies,theactualexistingreality contains much more possibility and potential than has been traditionallyrecognisedbypolicymakersandacademics.67Thusthetaskisthatofengagingmoreimaginatively with the constantly emerging present, alert to the fact that theserelationshipsneedtobecomeamatterofcare,attentionandopportunity.68‘WelcometotheAnthropocene’69

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Thisbook seeks toexplore theontopoliticaldiscourses that informand instantiatethe new governance practices of the Anthropocene, in the context of a broaddemandthatweacceptthatthewayweunderstandtheworldhastochangealongwiththewayinwhichweactwithinit.TheAnthropocene,inthisrespect,symbolisesmore than the threat of global warming - rather global warming is seen as theharbingerofanewawarenessofourmorehumblepositionintheworld:theendofthereassuringassumptionsof liberalmodernity.Tobemoreprecise, it isheldthatmodernityitselfwasneverhowweunderstoodittobe.AsBrunoLatourhaspointedout, modernity was a paradoxical condition, in that the more that we imaginedourselvesas subjects separated from theworld,developingknowledgeofhowwecould direct and control ‘natural’ processes, the more humanity grew entangledwithintheseprocesses.Modernityitselfwasthemidwifetoprocessesthatwerenolonger ‘natural’ nor amenable to external control or direction by human subjectsseentohaveallthepowersofagencywhiletherestoftheworld-ofnonhumans–was seen to bemerely passive objects of our intentionality.70As TimothyMortonargues, the awareness of human-induced climate change and of our dependenceuponnonhumanagencyhas‘donewhattwoandahalfdecadesofpostmodernismfailedtodo,removehumansfromthecentreof[our]conceptualworld’.71TheAnthropocene is thus seen to call forthnewmodesof knowing,engagingandgoverning.Waysthatarelesshuman-centredoranthropocentric.Mapping,SensingandHacking,itwillbearguedhere,arethreesuchmodes.Itisimportanttorealisethat these modes challenge the epistemological and ontological framings ofmodernity, from a position of radical scepticism grounded upon a new set ofmetaphysical certainties. For authors, like Latour andMorton, it is held to be theadvancesofscienceitself,whichhasrevealedtheworldtobemuchmoreentangledandcomplexthanmodernityimagined.Sciencehasitselfcalledahalttomodernityin its recognition of the Anthropocene condition. In this respect, according toMorton,globalclimatechangecouldbeseenasa‘savingpower’oracandidateforHeidegger’s ‘lastgod’,enablinghumanitytocomebacktotheworldafterrealisingthe terrible errors of modernist assumptions.72This return to the world is not ahappybut ahumblingone, ‘madeprecisely throughour advanced technologyandmeasuring instruments, not through worn peasant shoes and back-to-Naturefestivals’.73ForRayBrassieritisscienceitselfthathas‘uncoveredtheobjectivevoidofbeing’.74ForMorton:‘…ourcognitivepowersbecomeself-defeating.Themoreweknowaboutradiation,globalwarming,andtheothermassiveobjectsthatshowuponourradar,themoreenmeshedinthemwerealizeweare…Increasingscienceisnotincreasingdemystification.’75The Anthropocene, in fact, appears to be driven by new scientific advances,understood as enabling us to overcome the limitations of modernity. As Mortonargues: ‘Science itself becomes the emergency break that brings the adventure ofmodernity to a shuddering halt’.76William Connolly focuses on the geo sciencesrevealing that theEarth’s ‘planetary force fields’ - suchas climatepatterns, oceanconveyorsystems,speciesevolution,glacierflowsandaircirculations-havealwaysexhibitedself-organizingcapacities thatcango throughvolatileandrapidchanges.Thus theAnthropocene isnotnew,except in the fact thathuman impactsamplify

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the non-linear and interactive effects of these forces in increasingly unpredictableways.77TheAnthropocene thus spells theendof scienceas thecheerleader formodernistdiscoursesofprogress,ratherthantheendofscienceperse.Scienceasuncertaintyis seen to free us from narrow or blinkered approaches that assumed a ‘happyending’ inthefuture,basedontheassumptionofatelosof ‘progress’.This isnowoffthetable.Itisthepresentnotthefuturethatisimportant.Thereisnopossibilityofdebatingwhatthefuture‘ought’tobelike‘whenitisthewhatisthatobstinatelyrequestsitsdue’(emphasisinoriginal).78Thereisnomodernistfuture,regardlessofwhetherwewereevermodernornot,becausewewouldneedanotherfiveEarths‘topushourendlessFrontiertothesamelevelofdevelopmentasNorthAmerica’.79PerhapsemblematicofthisshiftisAnnaLowenhauptTsing’sbook,TheMushroomattheEndoftheWorld:OnthePossibilityofLifeinCapitalistRuins(2015).Herstartingassumption is the end of themodernist dreamof progress, based on the divisionbetween humanity and nature: ‘WithoutMan andNature, all creatures can comebacktolife,andmenandwomencanexpressthemselveswithoutthestricturesofaparochiallyimaginedrationality.’80TheimportanceofthebookasanexemplaroftheaffirmationoftheAnthropoceneisthatitself-consciouslydoesnotsetouttobe‘acritiqueofthedreamsofmodernizationandprogress’,butrathertothinkpasttheirend;totakeuptheradical ‘imaginativechallengeof livingwithoutthosehandrails,which once made us think we knew, collectively, where we were going’.81TheAnthropocenethusenablesustothink‘afterfailure’,‘afterprogress’,‘aftertheendoftheworld’.For Tsing, living with the end of modernist dreams of progress need not be anegative experience. Rather, we can come to realise that modernity itself was abarrier to living fuller lives.Our assumptionsofprogress, themodernist telos thatstriving harder would lead to collective betterment, now seem no moreemancipatory than religious promises of justice in the afterlife. Precarious andcontingent life inmodernity’s ‘ruins’ can be empowering and creative, full of newpossibilities which modernity foreclosed. As Tsing states: ‘Progress is a forwardmarch,drawingotherkindsoftimeinto itsrhythms.Withoutthatdrivingbeat,wemight notice other temporal patterns… agnostic about where we are going, wemight look for what has been ignored because it never fit the time line ofprogress.’82Herwork, therefore, is constructed as aworkof enablement, allowingthe reader to make the transition from mourning modernity to embracing itsdemise: I find myself surrounded by patchiness, that is, a mosaic of open-ended assemblages of entangled ways of life, with each further opening into a mosaic of temporal rhythms and spatial arcs. I argue that only an appreciation of current precarity as an earthwide condition allows us to notice this – the situation of the world. As long as authoritative analysis requiresassumptionsofgrowth,expertsdon'tseetheheterogeneityofspace andtime,evenwhenitisobvioustoordinaryparticipantsandobservers…To

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appreciatethepatchyunpredictabilityassociatedwithourcurrentcondition, weneedtoreopenourimaginations.83TheaffirmationoftheAnthropoceneisthusofaworldthatisfuller,morelivelyandmoreentangled than the soulless, simplifiedandatomisedworldofmodernity.AsQuentin Meillassoux argues, the Anthropocene welcomes us to the ‘greatoutdoors’,84what really exists rather than what exists in the stunted modernistimagination. ForTim Ingold, thequestion: ‘isnothow to represent theworldbut:‘Howtoturntheworldintosomething“real”,howtomaketheworld‘present’’.85AsTsingargues:‘Precaritymeansnotbeingabletoplan.Butitalsostimulatesnoticing,asoneworkswithwhat is available.’86Thegreatest tragedywould therebybenotthedeathofmodernityinitselfbutrathertherefusaltoseebeyondthis:‘Ifweendthestorywithdecay,weabandonallhope–orturnourattentiontoothersitesofpromiseandruin,promiseandruin.’87IfwerefusetoaffirmtheAnthropocene,wearetoldthatweareleftonlywiththechoiceofnihilisticpessimismorwithnaivelyrepeating the tragedies of the past. In fact, the Anthropocene is apparentlyserendipity itself, enabling us to develop just the sensitivities and new ways ofaffirmativethinkingandbeingthatweneedtoadapttoournewcondition: Whatif,asI’msuggesting,precarityistheconditionofourtime–or,toputit anotherway,whatifourtimeisripeforsensingprecarity?Whatifprecarity, indeterminacy, and what we imagine as trivial are the centre of the systematicityweseek?88Intheruinsofmodernitythereismorelifethancouldpossiblyhavebeenimaginedby modernist human subjects convinced of their separation from the world. Ourrealisation that we can no longer go on in old, modernist, ways, enables us toappreciate rather than fear the Anthropocene condition. Realising our precariouscondition brings us back to the world: the Anthropocene is like an unseen force,imposinganewsociabilityandnewsetofsensitivitiesonthebasis thatwearenolonger separate,no longer incontrol,no longernot interested inotheractorsandagencieswithwhichwecohabit.TheAnthropoceneistherebylessaworldofdoomandgloomandextinctionthananinvitationtobecurious,imaginative,exploratory,playfuleven…asweshallsee.OntopoliticsOntopolitics is a key concept for this book, as the ontological assumptions of theAnthropoceneareseentonecessitatenewmodesofgovernance.Whereas,forthemoderns,politicscarvedoutaseparatehumansphereoffreedomandautonomyindistinction from nature, for the no longer moderns of the Anthropocene thesituationisreversedanditistheworlditselfthatshapesanddirectsthecontentofpolitics.AsWilliamConnollyhasargued,‘everyinterpretationofpoliticalevents,nomatterhowdeeplyitissunkinspecifichistoricalevents,nomatterhowhighthepileofdatauponwhichitsits,containsanontopoliticaldimension.’89Importantly:

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Political interpretation is ontopolitical: its fundamental presumptions fix possibilities, distribute explanatory elements, generate parameters within which an ethic is elaborated, and center (or decenter) assessments of identity,legitimacy,andresponsibility.90ForConnolly,modernistsocialandpoliticalthoughthadneglectedtheontopoliticalassumptionsuponwhichitdepended,treatingthemasabackgroundthatcouldbetakenforgranted.91Asconsideredabove, it ispreciselytheseassumptionsthatarechallenged in the Anthropocene. A new set of ontopolitical assumptions arebeginning to inform contemporary social and political thought and thus the newmodesofgovernance,whichare thesubjectof thisbook. If, asEmmanuel Levinasclaimed, ‘political totalitarianism rests on an ontological totalitarianism’, 92 thenframingthepoliticsoftheAnthropocenetohighlightitsontopoliticalclaimsisavitalcriticaltasktoenablealternativeperspectivestoemerge.TheontopoliticsoftheAnthropoceneprivilegesthe‘is’oftheworldoverthe‘ought’of attempts to carve out a separate human space. Modern politics was orientedaroundtheproblemofthe‘ought’,howtheworldcouldbegovernedororganizedinways in which humanity could prosper. The struggle (often broadly construed interms of a continuum stretching between Left and Right)was also a contestationover forms of knowing and acting in the world. This contestation was coheredaround differing assumptions of human nature, such as whether humans wererational or irrational, individualist or collective, and the extent to which states orgoverning authorities needed to intervene upon this basis. Today, this view ofpoliticsasacontestationoverthenatureofthehumanandhowhumanitycanbestbeservedisseentobelesscentraltocontemporaryconcerns:andnolongerasthe‘beallandendall’ofpolitics.Perhapsanobviousanalogy couldbemadewithhow the strugglesof thewarringkingdoms of Westeros, in the ‘Game of Thrones’ TV series, begin to pale intoinsignificanceincomparisontotheloomingcollectivethreatposedbythecomingofwinterandtheWhiteWalkers.Likethecomingofwinter,entryintotheepochoftheAnthropocene isheldtodisplacethemodernist frameworkandcontextofpoliticalcontestation.Modernistpoliticsassumedthatthe‘is’oftheworldwouldlookafteritself,i.e.thatnatureortheenvironmentwasjustthebackdroporthestageforthegreat struggle between Left and Right. Today the positions seem to be reversed,winter/the Anthropocene is seen to push the politics of Left and Right from theforeground to the background. As Nigel Clark argues, ‘the impression that deep-seatedforcesoftheearthcanleaveonsocialworldsisoutofallproportiontothepower of social actors to legislate over the lithosphere’ (the earth’s uppermantleandcrust).93Therelationbetweenhumanityandnatureappearstobereversed: Whatdoesitmeantosaythatlife,ortheearth,ornature,ortheuniverseare not just constellations of material and energy with which humans forge connections, but realities uponwhich we are utterly dependent – in ways that are out of all proportion to life, nature, the earth or the universe’s dependenceonus?94

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Thereversingofthebackgroundandforegroundisnotentirelypoliticallyneutral.Infact, it is the aspirational politics of the Left, in its desire for greater freedom,autonomyandequality in social andeconomic life and for an increase inmaterialwealthanditsbroaderdistribution,whichappearstobeparticularlyproblematic.AsSaraNelsonandBruceBraunargue:‘Inthecontextoftheseentanglementsitisnotclearwhatautonomymeans,politicallyorontologically.’95 Asevincedinthenotionof‘immaterial’productionand an emphasis on the revolutionary possibilities offered by cognitive and communicative capitalism,thematerialconditionsofthisneweconomyofextractivismand the globalization of manufacturing remained unacknowledged… The understanding of human potentiality… depends on a sharp distinction between life and nonlife, human and nonhuman, and the movement’s historical analysis and political imagination rely on a knowable, reliable, ‘alwaysthere’naturethatisneitherusedupnorfilledwithsurprises.96As JasonMoorehas illustrated, oneof the keyproblems for thosewhobelieve inmaterialprogressasthekeytohumanbettermenthasbeenthatcapitalismdidnotjust exploit unpaid labour power but also the productive power of non-humanlabour.Thus,forMoore,itisnotonlythat,asMarxnoted,thereisatendencyoftherateofprofittofallbutthereisalsoatendencyfortherateof‘ecologicalsurplus’tofall,97with thedepletionofenergyandmineral resources.98Thedrive toovercomeboundaries to the appropriation of ‘cheap nature’ as well as ‘cheap labour’ gavecapitalismaproductivedynamicnotbasedpurelyontheinvisibilityofhumanlabourof unpaid reproduction (highlighted by feminist scholars, like Silvia Federici)99butalso on the invisibility of non-human labour and resources (an invisibilitywhich isnow all too visible).What was seen to be the expansion of progress and humanpotential can be read as actually the extractivemachine of capitalism ceaselesslyseekingnewuntappedresources toexploiton the ‘cheap’.This formoforganizingnaturehasnowreacheditslimits,ironicallybecauseoftheresistanceofnon-human‘nature’ratherthanarebellionofhumanity.100AsStengersnotes:‘TodayallMarxistorpost-Marxist scriptsmustconfrontaperspectiveofdestruction thatMarxcouldnotanticipate…whichdeeplyperturbsanytheory indifferenttothenew,dramaticrestrictionofourhistoricalhorizon.’101DipeshChakrabartyarguesthat‘logicallyspeaking,theclimatecrisisisnotinherentlyaresultofeconomicinequalities’;ifwehadlivedina‘moreevenlyprosperousandjustworld’ then ‘theclimatecrisiswouldhavebeenworse’: ‘Ourcollectivecarbonfootprintwouldhaveonlybeenlarger–fortheworld’spoordonotconsumemuchandcontributelittletotheproductionofgreenhousegases–andtheclimatechangecrisiswouldhavebeensomuchsoonerandinamuchmoredrasticway.’102Similarly,partoftheproblemof‘population’is‘duesurelyinparttomodernmedicine,publichealthmeasures,eradicationofepidemics,theuseofartificialfertilisers,andsoon’and therefore ‘cannot be attributed in any straightforward way to a logic of apredatory and capitalist West.’103Any imaginary of capitalism paving the way tosocialismasamoreprogressivesystem,asStengersargues,needstoberejectedon

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the basis that it ‘would instead herald the perfect socioecological storm whichsystematicextractionisnowunleashing’.104As Amitav Ghosh asserts, colonialization can be understood to have held backclimatechange: iftheEuropeanempireshadbeendismantledearlier,forexample,aftertheFirstWorldWar,thereiseverychancethattheeconomiesofmainlandAsiawould have accelerated earlier. 105 Thus the concept of human freedom thatdevelopedwiththeEnlightenmentisheldtodisappearintheAnthropocene,asitisrealized that humankind can never shed its dependence or transcend itsconstraints:106‘…the Anthropocene challenges the modern definition of freedom,long conceived in opposition to nature… A freedom understood in this way setshuman emancipation against nature, against the Earth as a whole.’ 107 ForChakrabarty and others, the problem of global warming and climate changechallenges political discourses of progress, based upon social justice and globalequality and freedom from oppression: there is a ‘growing divergence in ourconsciousness of the global – a singularly human story – and the planetary, aperspectivetowhichhumansareincidental.’108NelsonandBraunarguethatweareforced to accept thatmodernist or radical views of human autonomy and humanfreedom can no longer be credible today, ‘if the Anthropocene represents thefarcical realization of human autonomy in the form of planetary devastation – inwhichthe‘productionofmanbyman’appearstoleadtohisextinction’.109Takingabroaderapproachtoproblematisemodernistpoliticsinitsentirety,WilliamConnolly emphasises that the problem is epistemological rather than narrowly‘political’ – or to do with capitalism per se. Modernist political frameworks ofLeft/Rightcontestationlackedanappreciationoftheplanetaryprocesses,whicharerecognisedtoday.WhilethinkersoftheRightandtheLeftmayhavefundamentallydisagreed over many issues they all shared a ‘sociocentrism’ or ‘humanexceptionalism’, which placed humans as somehow above and separate from theworld. They acted as if social, economic and political processes were all thatmattered; that the ‘environment’ was merely the backdrop to the great humandramaofsocialandpoliticalstruggle.Ifthemodernsconsideredchangescausedbynon-humanforcesandassemblages,thesewereconsideredtobesetonadifferentand slower temporality than that of human or cultural transition andtransformations: Sociocentrism, in individualist, nationalist, communist, neoliberal, and republicantraditions,assumesthatapoliticaleconomyiseitherinchargeof nature,orthatthelimitsnatureposestoitaresetonlong,slowtime,or,ina moreattenuatedversion,thatifweliftthehumanfootprintnaturewillsettle down intopatternsthatarebenignforus.Givenanyof theseassumptions, questionsofagency,explanation,andbelonging inpracticetendtodevolve aroundattentiontointernalculturalpractices.110As Connolly and many other authors insist, modernist conceptions of politics, ofbelonging and community, of ethics and ideas of human freedom and humanexceptionalism,basedonmodernistepistemologicalandontologicalassumptionsof

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reason and causal linearity all need to be reformulated and reconsidered. Thecontemporaryconsensusisthat‘theAnthropoceneconceptobligesustoembarkona deep reconceptualisation’ of the categories and concepts of political science,including the understandings of human agency, of history, of politics and ofdemocracy: 111 ‘Yet political theory, stuck in the Holocene, has been slow torecognise the Anthropocene and what it means. Most insights have come fromphilosophers and sociologists’112less tied to the assumptions and binaries of theformalpoliticalsphereofstatesandcitizens.This shift fundamentallyalters thenatureofpoliticsandgovernance.Politics isnolonger ‘allaboutus’ in thesenseofwhatwemight thinka justorequitableworldmightbeandinstead‘allabouttheworlditself’.Stengerscapturesthisnicelyinherviewthat,whiletheproblemsoftheAnthropocenemaybecausedbythecouplingof thematerial processes of capitalism and geological forces of nature, the brutalintrusionoftheplanetorGaiameansthat‘StrugglingagainstGaiamakesnosense:itisamatteroflearningtocomposewithher.’113Stengersemphasisesthat‘thereisnochoice’.114Thisentails: …cutting the link… established [in the nineteenth century] between emancipation and what I would call an “epic” version of materialism, a version that tends to substitute the taleofa conquestofnaturebyhuman laborforthefableofMan“createdtohavedominionovertheearth.”Itisa seductive conceptual trickbutone thatbetson theearth available for this dominionorconquest.NamingGaiaisthereforetoabandonthelinkbetween emancipation and epic conquest, indeed even between emancipation and most of the significations that, since the nineteenth century, have been attachedtowhatwasbaptized“progress.”115For Stengers, the modernist discourse of “progress” and of the possibility of a“happy ending” is over, which means that if ‘emancipation’ is to mean anythingtoday itwillbeaquestionofouremancipation frommodernist illusionsofhumanexceptionalism.Keytothisispayingattentiontotherealityoftheworldratherthanhumanimaginaries:‘Whatitisamatterofbeingwaryofarethesimplificationsthatwould still ratify a story of progress, including the one that enables us to see thetruthofwhatwearefacing.’116The ontopolitics of the Anthropocene can be simply understood as putting thenatureofentangledbeingatthecentreofpoliticsratherthanthedesignsorgoalsofthe human as subject. In this respect, Anthropocene ontopolitics is very differentfromprevious attempts to govern through the knowledge and control over life asconstituted through modernist science. Powerful critiques of modernist forms ofgoverningthroughthesciencesof ‘life’, ‘population’or ‘race’ intheframeworksofbiopoliticshavebeeninformedbyorinresponsetotheworkofMichelFoucault.117However, in the Anthropocene, as considered above, biopolitics as a form ofmodernist command-and-control, seems particularly inadequate as a way ofmanaging risk and contingency.118In contrast tobiopolitics,which seeks to governon the basis of the knowledge of biological or ecological life and its optimization

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(variouslyunderstood),119Anthropoceneontopoliticsseekstogovern in the faceofthe loss of modernist epistemological assumptions:120governing thereby seeks toadaptorrespondtotheworldratherthanseekingtocontrolordirectit.Mapping,SensingandHackingModernistformsofpoliticsassumedthatgovernancecouldbecentrallydirectedonthe basis of ‘command-and-control’ understandings. Power was understood tooperate hierarchically on the basis that knowledge could be centralized andoperationalized in universal and linear ways. Traditionally the ways in whichgovernmental power was understood and operationalized have differed with thedevelopment of social, historical and productive processes and the outcomes ofideological contestation and political struggle. Perhaps the most influentialdescription of the modes of governmental power has been that of Foucault’sanalysisoftheexerciseofauthoritydirectly,through‘sovereignpower’andinmoredistributedways,through‘disciplinarypower’throughsocialinstitutions,andintheform of ‘biopower’, understood as a more positive attempt to manipulate anddevelopsocialandbiological forces.Asanalysedabove,theAnthropoceneappearsto bring to a close the human-centred, subject-centred or anthropocentricunderstandingsofpowerandgovernmentalagency.Thethreemodesofgovernanceanalysed in the rest of this book all depart fromamodernist framing and seek togovernadaptivelyor responsively inwayswhich increasingly appear tobecomeathomeintheAnthropocenecondition.MappingThegovernancemodeofMappingisthefirstmajorchallengetomodernistformsofknowledge and power, through the shift in focus from the subject of power (theideasandunderstandingofgoverningagencies) tothe importanceoftheobjectofgovernanceitself.Mappingassumesthatcausalityisnon-linearandthatknowledgeisnotuniversal; inotherwords, thesameexternalstimulusmayproducedifferentresponsesdependingonthesocial,historicalandeconomicrelationsofaparticularentity or society. It is therefore these internal relations that require tracing ormapping as a precondition for any policy intervention into these processes. InMappingasamodeofgovernance,groundedintheontologicalassumptionsoftheAnthropocene, governance interventions cannot impose or direct outcomes fromabove but only work indirectly to shape or enable the processes of interactiveemergence. Mapping can thus be understood as autopoietic as the process isinternallygenerated: internalorendogenousrelationsarekeytoenablingadaptiveand effective responses to external stimuli. Mapping approaches of ‘bottom-up’immanencethereforeinformawide-rangeofgoverningpracticesandphilosophicalperspectives, from neo-institutionalist understandings of contingency, context andpath-dependencies, to the adaptive cycles and panarchies of ecosystem resilienceand themore radical conceptions of assemblage theorists, seeking tomap and tounderstandnestedassemblagesofnon-linearcausalchainsofemergence.Sensing

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WhileMappingisadistinctivegovernancemodeinthatitworksontheassumptionofnon-linearcausality,Sensingisdistinctiveinshiftingtheemphasisofgovernancefrom causality to correlation. This is fundamental as Sensing no longer carries themodernist baggage of problem-solving based on understanding the ‘root causes’eveniftheseareconstructedincomplexandnon-linearways.WhereasMappingcanbe grasped as autopoietic, as the focus is on self–growth, based on adaptive‘bottom-up’ processes of interaction, Sensing can be grasped as homeostatic,seekingtomaintainthestatusquo.Sensinglacksanontologyofdepthandworksonthesurfaceofappearances,seekingtorespondtotheemergenteffectsofprocessesratherthantointerveneatthelevelofcausalchainsofunderstanding.Sensingasaformofgovernance,basedoncorrelationratherthancausation,dependsupontheability to see things in their process of emergence. It is for this reason that newtechnologiesareoftencrucialtothedeploymentofSensingwithanimaginarythatsensing responses can become increasingly real time, thereby not preventingproblemsfromarisingbutminimizingtheirimpactordisturbance.HackingHacking as a mode of governance is neither autopoietic nor homeostatic butsympoieticinitsunderstandingthatlifeisentangledfromthestart.ForHackingitisthe process itself that comes first rather than the separations of self and other,subjectandobjectorhumanandnon-human.LikeSensing,Hackinglacksaconcernwith the depth of processes of emergence and of attempting to trace and mapcausalinterconnection,butwhatsetsitapartfromSensingisthatHackingisamuchmore interactive and affirmative engagement with the unfolding of theAnthropocene.HackingasaprocessofsympoiesisseekstoenablethecreativityoftheAnthropoceneratherthanmerelytoresistitorlimititseffects.Table1.Modernity,Mapping,SensingandHackingModernity rationality linearcausality culture/nature

divideprogress

Mapping autopoiesis non-linearcausality

depth/immanence

adaptation

Sensing homeostasis correlation surface/effects

responsiveness

Hacking sympoieisis experimentation entanglement/becomingwith

radicalopenness

All three governance modes – Mapping, Sensing and Hacking – reject modernistperspectivesofprogressand theiruniversalknowledgeassumptionsaswellas themodernistbinarydivideofculture/nature,seeingthehumansubjectasrelationallyembeddedorentangledratherthanasanautonomousrationalsubjectdistinctfromtheworld.Iwouldsuggestthough,thatthethreemodesaredistinctinchartingtheshiftfrommodernisttonon-modernistassumptionsoftheAnthropocenecondition.

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Mappingapproacheshighlighttheimportanceofadaptationtotherisksandthreatsposed by the Anthropocene and often assume the possibility of governanceinterventions in processes of emergence. Sensing focuses more on accepting theAnthropocene condition and responding to threats and problems in ways thatminimiseoreffacethem,ratherthanattemptingtopreventorsolvetheminsomeway. Hacking goes furthest in affirming the opportunities provided by theAnthropocene, encouraging new forms of creative experimentation and indevelopingagreaterawarenessofnewpossibilities.StructureofthebookThisbookisorganizedinfiveparts.PartOneisthis introductorychapter.PartTwoprovides an introduction to the governance mode of Mapping. In Chapter 2, thedeveloping of Mapping as a specific form of governance is analysed through thetransitionfromneoliberalorneo-institutionalistframeworksofdifferentiationuptocontemporaryapproachesofassemblagethinking.Neoliberalthoughthasclassicallybeen concerned with the limits of governance and the unknowability of complexprocessesofinteraction.Itisarguedthatinthelate1970sneoliberalismshiftedfromthe critical margins to informing governmental understandings of different path-dependencies with non-linear outcomes, central to neo-institutionalist policies ofdevelopment intervention. In the same period, similar understandings of systeminteraction and emergent outcomesdeveloped in ecosystem theories of resilienceandsystemadaptation.Mappingthusdevelopedasaspecificmodeofgovernancebasedonthe importanceof internalorendogenousprocessesofadaptive learningand development and the necessity of intervention, not directly or from the ‘top-down’butindirectly,fromthe‘bottomup’.Chapter3drawsoutthedevelopmentofMappingthroughanattemptto‘drilldown’tounderstandthecomplexprocessesofemergence and then increasingly shifting to seeing these limits of depth as anecessary ontological barrier to knowledge, leading to an appreciation ofmultipleworldsandformsofphenomenologicalaccess.PartThreeofthebookconsidersthesecondgovernancemodeofSensing.Chapter4analysesSensingasaresponsetothelimitsofMapping.WhereMappingfocusesonindirectformsof interventiononthebasisofanontologyofnon-linearorprocess-based causality, Sensingworks on the surface of appearances, on the level of theactual,withoutcausalassumptions.Thechapterengageswiththealternativeformsofknowledgegenerationthroughtheuseofcorrelationtodatafyrelationsinorderfor processes of emergence to be seen in real-time.Without causal assumptions,Sensing as a mode of governance thus moves further away from a modernistframeworkofunderstandingandlacksatemporalityofprogressorproblem-solving,instead seeking to slow-down or hold-back emergent effects, ameliorating theireffectsthroughresponsiveactions.Chapter5drawsoutthesepoints inrelationtooneof the keydriving forcesof Sensing, thedevelopmentofBigDataanalytics. Itdiscusses the epistemological and ontopolitical claims of BigData as the ability todevelop sensing capacities and the use of data-driven discourses of resilience topromote non-modernist understandings of government as self-responsiveness andself-regulation. While Mapping discourses encounter the problem of depth it is

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suggested that Sensing discourses of the homeostatic modulation of effectsencountertheproblemofdevelopingalternativepossibilities.PartFourprovidesan introductiontoHackingasathirdformofgovernance intheAnthropocene.Chapter6describesHackingasanexperimentalpracticeseekingtorepurposeandre-envisionrelations.HackingcanbeseenasaresponsetothelimitsofBigDataSensinginthatratherthanpassiveorautomatedresponsestoemergenteffects, Hacking discourses seek to engage proactively through new participatorypractices; seeing disturbances as opportunities for experimentation rather thanmerelyasproblemsinneedofsolutionsandforareturntothestatusquo.Chapter7providesamoreconceptualframingofHackingasadistinctgovernancemodebasedonanontologyofsympoiesis,of‘becomingwith’,ratherthaneitheranautopoieticorhomeostaticframing.Hackingworkswiththeemergenteffects,asdoesSensing,butseekstoseenewcreativepossibilitiesthroughinteractiveprocesses.Inthisway,Hacking is process-based, like Mapping, but is future-oriented, seeing humanfreedom as not subject-based but process-oriented in enabling the unfolding ofchange.WhereasbothMappingandSensing seek toholdback theAnthropocene,Hacking as amode of governance seeks to affirm and to intensify the process oftransformation.PartFivereflectsuponthestakesofAnthropoceneontopolitics.Chapter8analysestheimplicationsforcritiqueanddrawsoutthedistinctionbetweenthecritiquesofmodernity on the basis of its alienating and dehumanising framing of the gapbetween man and nature and the contemporary affirmation of Anthropoceneontopoliticswhichseeks to reifyand intensify thisgap rather than toovercome it.This distinction is fundamental for understanding the affirmative power ofAnthropocene ontopolitics in its transvaluation of reason into the affirmation ofunreason,whichnolongerresidesinhumansocial,politicalandscientificlimitations- the lack of knowledge or understanding of the world, which therefore canpotentiallybecorrected-butinthecontingentprocessesoflifeitselfandthereforeformstheontopoliticalgroundsfornewmodesofitsgovernance.Chapter9providesabriefsummaryconclusionoftheargumentofthebook.Notes1Icapitalisetheseterms,whentheydesignatemodesofgovernance.2See,further,Chandler,2014d.3Morozov,2013.4SeeCrutzenandStoermer,2000;alsoCrutzen,2002;CrutzenandSteffen,2003.5The previous understanding was that earth was in the epoch of the Holocene,which began at the end of the last Ice Age, 12,000 years ago. The Holocene isunderstood to be an epoch of relative temperature stability, which enabled theflourishingofhumanprogress:thenamingoftheAnthropoceneasanewepochcallsattentiontohowhumanimpactsontheearthhavebroughtthisperiodofstabilitytoanend.AtthetimeofwritingtheInternationalCommissiononStratigraphyhadnot

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reacheda formaldecisionon thenamingordatingof theAnthropoceneasanewepoch.6WorkingGrouponthe'Anthropocene',2017.Theseimpactsincludetheemissionsof ‘greenhouse’ gases leading to global warming, the collapse of biodiversityincludingdebateaboutwhetherwecanspeakofa‘sixthextinction’,theacidificationof the oceans and changes in biogeochemical cycles of water, nitrogen andphosphate. The earth system scientists of the Resilience Centre in Stockholm listnineplanetaryboundaries:stratosphericozonedepletion;lossofbiosphereintegrity(biodiversity loss and extinctions); chemical pollution and the release of novelentities;climatechange;oceanacidification;freshwaterconsumptionandtheglobalhydrological cycle; land system change; nitrogen and phosphorus flows to thebiosphereandoceans;andatmosphericaerosolloading.Fourofthesearecurrentlyoperating beyond the safe operating space and two are not yet quantified(StockholmResilienceCentre,2017).7Latour, 2014; Clark, 2010; Haraway, 2015; Proctor, 2013; Swyngedouw, 2011;Macfarlane,2016;BonneuilandFressoz,2016.8Davies,2016:p.5.9Latour,2013b:p.77.10Any attempt to quantify an ontopolitical shift in understandings via geologicalmarkings or historical events is inevitably going to be unsatisfactory as it isimpossibletodemarcateachangeempirically,whenthekeyaspectisthechanginginterpretationofthefactsratherthanthefactsthemselves. It is this interpretativeshiftthatisthesubjectofthisbook.11LewisandMaslin,2015.12Fordiscussion,seeBonneuilandFressoz,2016:pp.14-18.13Ibid.;pp.32-33.14Latour,2013b:p.1219.15Ghosh,2016:p.6.16Ibid.;p.26.17Ibid.:p.36.18BonneuilandFressoz,2016:p.21.19Morton,2013:p.99.20 ‘…there is no meaningfulness possible in a world without a foreground-background distinction. Worlds need horizons and horizons need backgrounds,whichneedforegrounds…Wehavenoworldbecausetheobjectsthatfunctionedasinvisiblesceneryhavedissolved.(Morton,2013:p.104)21Latour,2013b:p.4;seealsop.63;p.100.22Ibid.:p.78.23Ibid.:p.125.24SeeMoore,2015.25SeetheextensivediscussioninBonneuilandFressoz,2016,whoprovideseven,indepth,historicalnarratives.26Bonneuil,2015:p.29.27SeeMoore,2016.

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28Morton,2013:p.1;p.60.AsMyraHirdandAlexanderZaharanote (2017:p.123)‘wasteconstitutesperhapsthemostabundantandenduringtraceofthehumanforepochstocome’.29Ibid.:p.7.30See,forexample,Latour1993a;2010a;2013a.31Morton,2013:p.19;Stengers,2015;Ghosh,2016.32BonneuilandFressoz,2016:72-79.33DanowskiandViveirosdeCastro,2017.34In1972,hardlyanyvoiceschallengedthemodernistviewthatthecrisiscouldbemanaged through predictive modeling and improvements in global governance,enablinganew‘globalequilibrium’,‘aconditionofecologicalandeconomicstabilitythat is sustainable far into the future’ (ClubofRome,1972:p.24); FriedrichHayekandCSHolling(bothofwhomwillbeconsideredinthefollowingchapter)weretwooftheveryfewdissentingtheoristswhocontestedwhattheysawtobethe‘hubris’atplayinimaginingthatastableequilibriumwaspossible(WalkerandCooper,2011:p.149).35StonerandMelanthopoulos,2015:p.20.36Rowan,2014:p.44737Latour,2013b:p.7738Stengers,2015:p.17.39Haraway,2016:p.100.40Latour,2013b:pp.76-77.AsClaireColebrooknotes(2017:p.16),discussionoftheAnthropocene,‘lendsmoreweighttoWalterBenjamin’sclaimthateverydocumentofcivilizationisadocumentofbarbarism.’41Clark,2014:p.28.42BonneuilandFressoz,2016:p.2143Hamilton,2015:p.35.44Giddens,1994:p.4;Beck,2009.45Baldwin,1997;Chandler,2010.46Connolly,2017.47Latour,2013b:p.9.48See, forexample,Mitchell,2009:pp.ix-xiii;PrigogineandStengers,1985;Cilliers,1998.49VossandBornemann,2011;Berkesetal,2003.50Stengers,2015:p.47.51SeeFagan,2017.52Latour,2013b:p.81.53Ibid.:pp.81-2.54Fagan,2017:p.308.55SeeHamilton,2017.56Haraway,2015:p.3.57 Stengers, 2015: p.8; see also Stengers, 2017: ‘whatever the geoengineeringmethod, it would require that we keep extracting and mobilizing the massivenecessary resources, to keep on feeding the climate manipulating machine…’(p.384).58Latour,2013b:p.66

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59See,forexample,Revkin,201460Colebrook,2017:p.18.61BonneuilandFressoz,2016:p.xiii;p.49.62Ibid.:p.86.63Hamilton,2015:p.41;seealsoHamilton,2013.64Grusin,2017:p.ix.65Dalby,2017.66Forexample,Gibson-GrahamandRoelvink,2010.67See,forexample,Sharp,2011;Grosz,2011:p.77,p.183.68 In this regard, the implications of the Anthropocene accord closely withperspectives forwarded by a wide range of critical theorists associated withposthuman, newmaterialist and speculative realist approaches among others (forexample, Braidotti, 2013; DeLanda, 2006; Coole and Frost, 2010; Barad, 2007;Bennett,2010;Connolly,2013;Harman,2010).69SeeEconomist,2011.70Latour,1993;2004a.71Morton,2013:p.181.72Ibid.:p.21.73Ibid.:p.36.74Brassier,2007:p.25.75Morton,2013:pp.160-61.76Ibid.:p.21.77Connolly,2017:p.4.78Latour,2013b:p.126.79Ibid.80Tsing,2015:p.vii.81Ibid.:p.2.82Ibid.:p.21.83Ibid.:pp.4-5.84Meillassoux,2008:p.50.85Ingold,2015:p.135.86Tsing,2015:p.278.87Ibid.:p.18.88Ibid.:p.20.89Connolly,1995:p.1.90Ibid.:p.2.91Ibid.:pp.2-492CitedinCampbell,2005:p.131.93Clark,2010:Kindlelocation220-221.94Ibid:Kindlelocation917-918.95NelsonandBraun,2017:p.224.96Ibid.:p.229.97Highlighted as a ‘metabolic rift’ by McKenzie Wark (2015; p.xiv): ‘where onemolecule after another is extracted by labor and technique to make things forhumans,butthewasteproductsdon’treturnsothatthecyclecanrenewitself.’98See,Moore,2015:p.226.

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99See,forexample,Federici,2012.100SeediscussioninRead,2017.101Stengers,2017:p.383.102Chakrabarty,2015:49;seealsoChakrabarty,2009.103Ibid.:p.50.104Stengers,2017:p.387.105Ghosh,2016:pp.109-110.106Ibid.:p.119.107BonneuilandFressoz,2016:40.108Chakrabarty,2015:55.109NelsonandBraun,2017:p.233.110Connolly,2017:p.20.111Hamiltonetal,2015b:p.9112Ibid.113Stengers,2015:p.53.114Ibid.:p.58.115Ibid.116Ibid.:p.67.117 See, for example, Foucault, 1981, also 2003; 2008; for more recent andcontrastingframeworks,see,Agamben,1998;2005;Esposito,2008;2013;Mbembe,2003.118See,forexample,Dalby,2013.119ForanexcellentintroductionseeLemke,2011.120 As Elizabeth Povinelli notes (2017: p.54) ‘Certain tokens (human animals,nonhuman animals, plants, rocks andminerals…) of certain types (life, nonlife) nolonger seem as self-evidently distinct as they once did… we might say that thedisclosureofthisontologicalworldisbeingredisclosedbytheemergenceofanewconditionofknowledge.’