The many Anthropocenes: A transdisciplinary challenge for the Anthropocene research

Abstract

The debate on the Anthropocene has become passionate during the past few years. This is partly because social scientists and humanists have adapted the concept creatively for their own research, as well as criticized the dominant role of natural sciences in defining the Anthropocene. We claim that to achieve a new level of transdisciplinarity it is vital for the Anthropocene research to fully acknowledge the theoretical, methodological and practical issues involved. We argue that inevitable as well as fruitful antagonisms can be identified between different disciplines and practices of trans- and interdisciplinary research improved by learning from these experiences. Here we analyze three ideas to enhance future transdisciplinary communication. First, we shed light on the current condition of transdisciplinarity in Anthropocene research by examining the challenges in Earth System science. Second, we widen the view on Anthropocene research by defining four different disciplinarily oriented research approaches to the Anthropocene: geological, biological, social, and cultural Anthropocene. Third, we reflect on the future challenges of merging these approaches into a new transdisciplinary Anthropocene research.

Keywords

Anthropocene Earth System sciences humanities interdisciplinarity social sciences

Introduction

Anthropocene, as suggested by Crutzen and Stoermer (2000), has created a wealth of publications from vastly different fields of science (for a bibliometric survey, see Brondizio et al., 2016). So far, the potential acceptance of the Anthropocene Epoch into the International Chronostratigraphic Chart has gained most of the public and scientific attention. For this purpose, the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) established the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) in 2009 within the ICS Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) with a task ‘to examine the possibility of recognizing an Anthropocene division either within the Holocene or separated from it’ (see the SQS website: http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/workinggroups/).

In the fall of 2016, at the International Geologic Congress, the AWG gave the recommendation that the Anthropocene should be recognized as a separate division from the Holocene as its own Epoch in the International Chronostratigraphic Chart. The recommendation suggested the base for the Epoch to be set to 1950. The next step is to compile the necessary evidence for the official suggestion to be put forth for the ICS. Currently, the process is ongoing in the AWG. Recently, some scholars have criticized this definition process of ‘geological Anthropocene’, stating that AWG narrows the definition of the Anthropocene into one point of time and thus neglects complex histories of human–nature relations (e.g. Ellis et al., 2016; Lewis and Maslin, 2015).

This kind of incommensurability between different uses of the Anthropocene concept arise from at least two main sources. First, at the moment, it is not perfectly clear what the intended natural scientific meaning of the concept of the Anthropocene is in stratigraphy and geology. Second, when the geological concept is adopted in other scientific fields, mainly in social sciences and humanities, it is re-interpreted, either intentionally or by default, in terms of the conceptual and methodological framework of those fields. While the stratigraphic definition of the Anthropocene may very well turn out to be clear and solid in the geological sense, the more general Anthropocene phenomenon needs to be discussed, for example, in terms of biological, social and cultural research to accomplish effective inter- and transdisciplinary research.

We believe, among others, that there is a need for an analytical separation between the stratigraphically defined geological Anthropocene and a general notion of Anthropocene that considers a much wider phenomenon of planetary anthropogenic transformations. The concept of Anthropocene first arose from the field of Earth System science and was then anchored in stratigraphic debate, from where it quickly dispersed over different scientific fields, proving its usefulness and synthetic appeal (see Hamilton and Grinevald, 2015). Even though the term Anthropocene used in these different fields and contexts – biological, social, cultural – is lexically the same, the meanings sometimes are incommensurable and at other times have commonalities. The shared term hides conceptual multiplicity, which can be a source of confusion and friction – even disciplinary antagonisms or struggle (as it is manifested, for example, in Ellis et al., 2016). On the other hand, the shared references and observations can lay ground for fruitful transdisciplinary work (see Brondizio et al., 2016).

To better understand the Anthropocene debate and the challenges the suggested epoch poses on the diverse disciplines and their coexistence, we address the debate from the viewpoint of interdisciplinarity. Terminologically, we follow the common (as well as debated and challenged) differentiation between multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity, where the degree of conceptual and methodological merging increases from the obvious separation of diverse disciplines working together in multidisciplinary projects, towards the more synthetic exchange between concept-formation and methodology in interdisciplinary research. Transdisciplinarity represents the most integrated type of research operating with questions, concepts and methods that are not clearly originated in any specific existing discipline (see Huutoniemi et al., 2009).

Our goal is to concentrate on the question how inter- and transdisciplinary research on the Anthropocene can strengthen, benefit and foster the progress of science and its capacity to create tools for solving global environmental crisis. We claim, that to achieve a new level of inter- or even transdisciplinarity in the research of the Anthropocene, it is vital to fully acknowledge the theoretical, methodological and practical issues involved. Thus, to understand the multiple natural, social and cultural causes and effects of the Anthropocene, the focus must be first on the tensions in practices and principles of science and scholarship across the disciplines.

We will proceed as follows. First, we analyse the level of interdisciplinarity in the field of Earth System science (ESS). The development and role of ESS has been crucial in the Anthropocene debate, thus we use it as an example to illustrate the complexities and antagonisms of inter- and transdisciplinary research, and why many times best that can be obtained is multidisciplinarity. Second, we define four different disciplinary oriented research approaches to the Anthropocene: geological, biological, social, and cultural Anthropocene. We hope that the analytical distinction in to four Anthropocenes will highlight the variation in epistemological commitments, methodologies and theories in different traditions of scientific disciplines. We argue that by strengthening the understanding on these differences, or in other words antagonisms, possibilities for future inter- or transdisciplinary research of the Anthropocene can be improved. Finally, we discuss the future opportunities and challenges of merging these approaches into a new transdisciplinary Anthropocene research.

The antagonisms of interdisciplinarity: The case of Earth System Science

The idea of the Anthropocene originally arose from the field of ESS. Thus, it holds a special character in Anthropocene studies. As a widely recognized global research community it also represents important potential for future transdisciplinary research on the Anthropocene. However, ESS is also a scientific paradigm where significant epistemological, methodological and disciplinary problems can be identified. For this reason, we turn next to analyze the condition of interdisciplinarity in ESS to identify the wider problems of future Anthropocene research.

The scientific history of ESS builds on advances in geosciences and can be traced back several decades. It has evolved through numerous international scientific programs and projects that were based on a drive for a more holistic and transdisciplinary approach on the state of planetary ecosystems (e.g. Hamilton and Grinevald, 2015; Steffen et al., 2016). However, it was not until the 1990s that scientists gained proper technological tools to understand the operation of complex Earth systems as a whole and the pervasive human impact on them (see discussion in Hamilton and Grinevald, 2015, for a review). Interestingly, the recent discussion on the Anthropocene has also produced fruitful interaction between geology and ESS, suggesting possible synthesis between the two (Steffen et al., 2016; Zalasiewicz et al., 2017)

Contemporary ESS uses a wide range of tools and interdisciplinary expertise in observing and modelling the dynamics of the Earth System as a whole. The holistic analysis of the dynamics of Earth System and its subsystems represents, for some, an emerging paradigm (e.g. Steffen et al., 2004, 2016), or even ‘paradigm shift’ (see Hamilton and Grinevald, 2015). Since the 1980s, there has been a drive to incorporate life sciences and social sciences into ESS (see e.g. Mooney et al., 2013, for a review), although this has been complicated task. ESS is itself an ‘interdiscipline’, and a crucial one for Anthropocene studies, but its very internal consistency in terms of ontology (systems, cycles, thermodynamics, feedback, deep time, etc.) and epistemology (data standardization, remote sensing, methods of reconstructing the past, computer models, let alone its visual grammar of timelines, etc.) might prevent the integration of other disciplines with their own terms (see e.g. Kwa, 1987, 2005).¹ For example, contemporary Earth System analysis does not incorporate sufficiently the Human Systems (demographics, inequality, economic growth, migration, etc.) into its models (e.g. Pindyck, 2013; Stern, 2013, 2016). Instead, at the moment the knowledge of the human systems is brought to Earth System analysis as exogenous estimates as is the case, for example, with the United Nations population projections (Motesharrei et al., 2016).

To illustrate the interdisciplinary challenges of ESS (and in more general terms the challenges of Anthropocene research), the three different modes of interdisciplinarity classified by Barry et al. (2008) are useful here. First, there is the integrative-synthesis mode, where two or more fields, which share similar theoretical and terminological basis, engage in multidisciplinary research and coexist. For example, Earth Sciences is a combination of geology, meteorology, oceanography, and astronomy that all share similar background. Second, a subordination-service mode, where one or more disciplines are organized in a relation of subordination or service to other component disciplines. This is the case, for example, when natural sciences and engineering engage with ‘social factors’, which had hitherto been excluded from analysis or consideration. However, in this mode, social scientists are expected to ‘adopt the “correct” natural science definition of an environmental problem “and devise relevant solution strategies”’ (Barry et al., 2008). This mode of interdisciplinarity also illustrate the problems why ESS has, so far, struggled to incorporate social sciences and humanities to the core of its practices. Third, agonistic-antagonistic mode, where the interdisciplinary research is, according to Barry et al. (2008), conceived and evolving neither as a synthesis nor in terms of a disciplinary division of labour, but driven by an ‘agonistic or antagonistic’ relation to existing forms of disciplinary knowledge and practice.

We find that the best route towards a fruitful advancement of science and knowledge might lie in the agonistic-antagonistic mode that is currently working within a larger framework of Anthropocene research. Instead of just insisting for ideal conditions of interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinary in front of global environmental crisis (a rhetoric widely spread in contemporary global academic community), the possible antagonisms between disciplines should not be neglected, but discussed and researched as fruitful tensions for better future scientific understanding. We argue that here lies the crucial terrain for interdisciplinary improvement in both ESS and wider Anthropocene research community. A similar suggestion is made for example by Brondizio et al. (2016: 322) when they state that the Anthropocene concept is most fruitful when it succeeds in holding a ‘creative tension’ between ‘a materialistic claim about the organization and consequences of global change’ and ‘an idealistic claim about sense-making and the motivations to act for a sustainable and socially fair future’.

Before addressing the future challenge of inter- and multidisciplinary Anthropocene research, we define next four scientific or scholarly approaches to the Anthropocene. The following approaches already exist and sometimes overlap in the research on the Anthropocene, but it is our belief that to advance interdisciplinary research in the context of Anthropocene discussion, it is important to understand how these approaches stem from different disciplinary origins.

Different Anthropocene approaches: Geological, biological, social and cultural

Some researchers have suggested their own divisions or typologies concerning the different aspects of the Anthropocene. Ben Dibley, for example, observes the manifold use of the concept as (1) a name for an epoch and as a specific discourse concerning human involvement on the whole planet, (2) a mark for a radical temporal shift, (3) a risky condition that questions human freedom from material constraints, (4) a concept that dissolves the modernist separation of society from nature but simultaneously looks back to humanity, (5) suggests a new attachment between Earth and humans as Earthlings, (6) presents new conceptualizations and approaches for understanding the Earth as a complex ecological-economical system, and, finally, (7) expresses the unavoidable folding of a future that can no longer be understood in terms of (modernist) progress (Dibley, 2012.) Dibley presents these remarks as ‘theses on the Anthropocene and attachment’, as is formulated in the title of his essay. His focus is on the diverse conceptual and ideological aspects of the Anthropocene concept and related discussions.

More recently, historian Christophe Bonneuil has approached the intellectual challenge posed by the Anthropocene by extracting four different narratives or stories that structure our experiences but also shape our actions and thus the future of the whole planet. A narrative, in general, is a cultural composition of certain highlighted actors, phenomena and events presented in a certain temporal sequence, and it also attributes certain causal factors and moral judgments to this story-composition (Bonneuil, 2015: 17–18). According to Bonneuil, the four Anthropocene narratives are the naturalist narrative (focusing on the role of the human species as the planet-changing agent), the post-nature narrative (arguing that the nature–society divide is totally surpassed and this paves the way for a human-enhanced ‘hybrid techno-nature’), the eco-catastrophist narrative (lamenting the possible if not probable collapse of human civilization and global ecosystem), and the eco-Marxist narrative (observing the current situation as a result of social and economic inequality) (Bonneuil, 2015: 18–29). Instead of choosing one of these (or alternative) narratives, Bonneuil encourages us to think through the possible futures each of them might entail and create.

The divisions or typologies suggested by Ben Dibley and Christophe Bonneuil open up different aspects of the Anthropocene concept in an enlightening manner. They help to conceive the diversity of ideas, arguments and bodies of knowledge that are already involved in the Anthropocene discussions. This is also the case with the already wide range of alternative social scientific terms proposed such as Capitalocene (Malm, 2016; Moore, 2017), Chthulucene (Haraway, 2015), Anglocene (Bonneuil and Fressoz, 2016) or Oliganthropocene (Swyngedouw, 2015). They often represent welcomed critique, conceptual innovations and methodological perspectives on the Anthropocene – the diverse global human impacts on the world. However, simultaneously they are easily attached too tightly in traditional disciplinary constraints. Thus their applicability in transdisciplinary or interdisciplinary purposes is at least partly deficient.

We propose four different approaches to the Anthropocene that already exist in the disciplines of natural sciences, social sciences and humanities: The ‘geological Anthropocene’, which should be defined based on stratigraphic evidence, as outlined by the ICS; the ‘biological Anthropocene’ which focuses on the longer term anthropogenic changes on the biosphere; the ‘social Anthropocene’ which intertwines the geological and biological Anthropocenes in social, societal and historical processes; and, finally, the ‘cultural Anthropocene’, which refers to the cultural understanding of various creative and speculative reactions and representations of the geological, biological and social Anthropocene.

Currently, unfortunately, these approaches are mostly disciplinarily divided: geological and biological Anthropocene are studied in the natural sciences, social Anthropocene in the social sciences and cultural Anthropocene in the humanities. Moreover, obviously, it is in the intersections of these disciplinary divisions, where also the fruitful interdisciplinary antagonisms often arise. For future scholarly purposes, we propose that the approaches should not be understood as field-specific, but as examples of themes that could structure the development of transdisciplinary research. The research or its subjects should not necessarily be bounded or limited to these fields, but for brevity we concentrate on these examples to foster discussion and, hopefully, guide the debate to a more transdisciplinary direction. We start by defining the geological Anthropocene and analyzing briefly the criticism directed towards this definition.

Geological Anthropocene

One main field of geology is stratigraphy. It conserns the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). In stratigraphy, named stratigraphic time units must be defined or characterized at a specified geographical locality where they are well exposed and developed so that there will be a common material standard of reference for their identification. In addition, one must be able to identify a stratotype² for the stratigraphic boundary (e.g. Lewis and Maslin, 2015; Smith et al., 2014). The relationship between stratigraphy and Earth System science, for example, has been symbiotic. Stratigraphy has generated the boundaries and timescale for Earth history while Earth System science has used this temporal information for understanding the complex systems of Earth History and evolution (Steffen et al., 2016). Although the proposal for Anthropocene was initiated in the Earth System science community (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000), it needs to be officially recognized in the Geological Time Scale, one of the cornerstones of geology. Therefore, most work in the geology and geosciences has concentrated on investigating the stratigraphic record of the Anthropocene (e.g. Waters et al., 2016; Zalasiewicz et al., 2017). The focus has been in the formal definition of a new epoch (Steffen et al., 2016). If this date is to be situated in the 1950s, as it is now suggested (e.g. Steffen et al., 2016; Waters et al., 2016), it will constitute the geological timeframe for future geologists, historians, and geographers alike.

However, both the definition of the ecological Anthropocene as well as the official body, the AWG, nominated for the job has faced criticism. It has been argued that focusing narrowly on a global stratigraphic signature the AWG is determined to place the official Anthropocene boundary at 1950s (a point when substantial global human impact can be traced in rock strata), and thus misses significant and complex long-term historical transformations caused by human societies (e.g. Ellis et al., 2016; also Lewis and Maslin, 2015). In addition, some of the criticism is portraying AWG as a policy-oriented scientific body, which is ‘advocating’ (see Barry and Maslin, 2016) a problematic official Anthropocene narrative that neglects deeper understanding of socio-historical power structures, inequalities and contingent historical events through which the Anthropocene was formed³ (see also Bonneuil and Fressoz, 2016; Malm and Hornborg, 2014). Thus, according to the critique, while emphasizing its public mandate as a narrowly stratigraphic body, the group is simultaneously participating on a regular basis in the wider discussion on the history and politics of human impacts on the global environment (Barry and Maslin, 2016: 6; Lewis and Maslin, 2015). For these reasons, Ellis et al. (2016) have even suggested that AWG should either be replaced or supplemented with another scientific body.

It might well be, as critics have argued, that the AWG is not the best agent for explaining which historical processes, causalities or changes eventually transformed human societies into a geological force. It might also be that this weakness has something to do with the thin number of social scientists and humanists inside the AWG (see Ellis et al., 2016). Thus, from this perspective, the critical discussions considering the definition of geological Anthropocene also represent both interesting and potentially productive interdisciplinary intersection and antagonism – although some aspects of the discussion can also be qualified as unnecessarily inflamed or counterproductive. Consequently, when the work of AWG is subordinated under open interdisciplinary discussion and fruitful criticism (such as Lewis and Maslin, 2015), there is remotely reason to fundamentally question the capacity of the body to define the geological Anthropocene. Furthermore, if the institutional guidelines of stratigraphy are properly followed, the procedure should not pose a threat – as is feared by the critics – to wider interdisciplinary debate on the Anthropocene.

Biological Anthropocene

The biota of the Earth is undergoing a dramatic transformation. The spatial patterning, structure, and functioning of most of the ecosystems of the world have been altered by the activities of humankind (Barnosky et al., 2017; Mooney and Cleland, 2001). Historically, the impact on a global scale has usually been placed to the start of the Age of Exploration, c. 15th to 18th century (e.g. Mooney and Cleland, 2001). Another view is that global human impacts started much earlier (e.g. Ruddiman, 2003). The biological Anthropocene focuses especially on the effects and alterations that humans have caused to the biosphere, and how this has been connected with the development and spread of human societies.

The arrival of Columbus to the Caribbean Islands in 1492 marks the start of the collision of the New and Old Worlds, with the resulting ‘Columbian Exchange’ (see Crosby, 2003; Mann, 2011). With the Columbian Exchange plants, animals, and people moved in all directions across the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. New foodstuffs, for example tomatoes, cacao, potatoes, maize and cassava were brought to the Old World. Banana, sugarcane and coffee were planted in New World. Livestock, such as horses and cattle were introduced to the New World, too. Europeans also brought deadly diseases, such as smallpox, measles, typhus, and cholera to New World. On their return home, sailors brought syphilis to Europe (see e.g. Crosby, 2003; Mann 2011; Nunn and Qian, 2010).

Ever since the start of the Columbian Exchange, humans have altered the biotic environment with increasing speed and magnitude (see e.g. Mooney and Cleland, 2001; Seebens et al., 2017). In a recent study of non-native plants, the authors discovered that approximately 13,000 plant species, corresponding to 3.9% of the whole extant global vascular flora, have become naturalized somewhere on the globe as a result of human activity (van Kleunen et al., 2015). Continents in the Northern Hemisphere have been the major donors of naturalized alien species to all other continents. In addition to the exchange of plants and animals, the spread of humans has caused extinctions that far exceed the natural rates (Ceballos et al., 2015), and this has been increasing in speed towards the present (Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), 2016). The speed of extinctions is best quantified for vertebrates (Barnosky et al., 2011). Experts are already talking about ‘Defaunation of the Anthropocene’ (Dirzo et al., 2014; Young et al., 2016) and the start of the sixth mass extinction (Ceballos et al., 2015). Fish stocks are close to collapsing (Pauly and Zeller, 2016; Worm et al., 2006).

According to latest estimates from WWF, animal populations have declined 58% since the 1970s (WWF, 2016). The erosion of biogeographical barriers by human-mediated dispersal of species into new regions and extinctions is therefore one defining feature of the biological Anthropocene. There is every indication that these trends will intensify with the growth of human population even in protected areas, as we are affecting the atmosphere and the climate (Barnosky et al., 2017). In addition to climate, many of the root causes of animal population declines can be traced to inequality and social conflicts, especially in poorer countries (Brashares et al., 2014), whereas habitat alteration (Foley et al., 2005), invasive species (Clavero and Garcia-Berhou, 2005), as well as overexploitation (e.g. Pauly and Zeller, 2016; Young et al., 2016) are more general global causes that affect also richer countries. These trends are affecting how we see the natural world and try to preserve it (e.g. Barnosky et al., 2017).

Some authors question the uniqueness of the Columbian exchange, and the start date of the conscious active large-scale impact on environments (e.g. Boivin et al., 2012; Ellis et al., 2016; Jones et al., 2011). The exchange of food-items and the spread of plants has been documented in Eurasia and Africa since at least second millenium bc (Liu and Jones, 2014). These authors who concentrate mainly on the exchange of food-items in the early historical period are not alone. The so-called ‘Early Anthropocene hypothesis’ (Ruddiman, 2003) posits that humans have been active agents in changing their environment at least for 8000 years, maybe even since the end of the last Glacial around 10,000 years ago (Ruddiman et al., 2016). The question of where and when is not easy (see e.g. Ellis et al., 2017). Recently, there have been increasing numbers of studies (for review see Ruddiman, 2013) suggesting that humans have been altering the environments ever since Pleistocene (Boivin et al., 2016) or the Holocene (Lyons et al., 2016). Significant change can also result from destruction of human societies, as practices keeping up earlier changes are disrupted. When the arrival of Columbus in America resulted in depopulation of Native American tribes, the areas where they used to live reforested (Nevle et al., 2011). Similar evidence is emerging from the Southwest of USA, where the arrival of Spanish missionaries resulted in depopulation of local tribes and consequent reforestation (Liebmann et al., 2016). A recent review by Boivin et al. (2016) raises the question of how long have humans altered their surroundings in such way that we can see global effects.

From this approach it is obvious that the ecological effects of human–nature interactions have been diverse and sometimes counter-intuitive to the simplistic narrative of humans destroying nature – as we could see, the disruption of human action has sometimes resulted in large-scale changes and destruction of novel environments, even continent-wide. Thus instead of one beginning of the Anthropocene this approach inevitably identifies many beginnings. From the Pleistocene destruction of the megafauna to the Columbian Exchange, from the onset of agriculture to the expansion of modern industry, we can see an overlapping series of global changes with novel characteristics. The biological approach to the Anthropocene identifies these various beginnings and their connections to the changes in human societies – but it often lacks the tools to explore the structure of these societies in deeper detail. Thus another approach to the same range of phenomena is needed, so that a richer picture of socio-ecological interactions can be seen.

Social Anthropocene

The social Anthropocene is a socioenvironmental approach in which the evolution of human–nature relations are investigated within historical (‘historical’ meant as context of past, present and future) social structures. The perspective produces knowledge on how the changes in biosphere are connected to both world-systemic as well as national and regional social hierarchies, power and economic structures or political interests. Together with cultural Anthropocene, it searches the causes of environmental problems from human social behavior, economic development, technological solutions or political institutions adapted. Additionally, it opens the question of difference within and between distinct social groups (nation, class, race, gender) and how they relate, cause or are affected by environmental crisis.

Social Anthropocene often focuses on the ecosocial histories of the 500 years of the modern era, times after the Columbian exchange. This is for the reason that the period marks the birth, growth and expansion of the European-led world capitalism (e.g. Arrighi, 1994; Braudel, 1984; Wallerstein, 1974), which simultaneously intensified anthropogenic environmental problems around the globe (e.g. Crosby, 2015; Moore, 2003; Richards, 2003). The Industrial Revolution evidently marked a novel step in productivity, resource use and accumulation of greenhouse gases originating from the use of fossil fuels as well as the expansion of European or British imperialism (e.g. Allen, 2009; Malm, 2016; Pomeranz, 2009; Smith, 2010; Hornborg 2015). In addition, the Revolution has also a special symbolic role in the narratives of the Anthropocene (see e.g. Crutzen, 2002; Steffen et al., 2007). However, the world-systemic developments from 15th century onwards (colonialism, proto-industrialism, expansion of Eurocentric world-economy) present at least as fundamental a change in the evolution of the Anthropocene as the Industrial Revolution or transformations brought by the ‘Great Acceleration’ after the Second World War (e.g. Beckert, 2015; Moore, 2015; Wallerstein, 1974). It is these analysis of historical developments that have encouraged some scholars to suggest the term ‘Capitalocene’ as a more proper name for the new epoch (e.g. Haraway, 2015; Moore, 2017).

However, focusing on the age of capital or the modern era does not indicate that the earlier historical periods are not to be researched in the framework of social Anthropocene. The social approach also should recognize that there are many beginnings, not just one. This is easily clouded in the debate, as the definitions of Anthropocene are seen to carry normative judgements, and thus one definition may be seen too easily to invalidate another. The neolithic revolution, for example, was a significant transformation in human–nature relations and happened in concert with certain social, economic and power relations (see e.g. Hornborg and Crumley, 2007) . However, the evidence of the geological and biological Anthropocene points to the fact that the massive global anthropogenic impacts on the Earth System are bundled with the development of less than last 500 years of industrializing human societies.

The social Anthropocene – together with the cultural Anthropocene introduced below – is an approach that significantly contributes to the possible solutions on how the planet is steered towards the ‘safe operating space for humanity’ (see Rockström et al., 2009). The approach can identify, problematize and popularize the economic, political and ideological barriers that stand in front of sustainable pathways. In addition, the social Anthropocene can contribute to innovate, establish and rearrange the institutional arrangements that structure the economy, social life and environmental relations. Such tasks as the effective international cooperation to fight climate change, state-financed reconstructions of post-fossil fuel societies or carbon neutral market environment for businesses are at the core of social scientific study. In addition, social Anthropocene is also an orientation to identify social, economic, and cultural life forms that already are ‘sustainable’ in order to learn, support and expand them (e.g. Gibson-Graham, 2006). To mitigate and prevent the magnitude of environmental problems characteristic to the Anthropocene epoch, new solutions following the principles of global ecological and social justice and democratic practice are needed urgently, whether they be economic, technological or political.

Cultural Anthropocene

As soon as it began to spread in the scientific and environmentalist discussions, environmentally engaged artists, arts scholars and philosophers have been eager to apply the term ‘Anthropocene’ to their work and research, with widely divergent meanings. The Anthropocene concept functions as a tool for philosophical reflection on humanity and human–non-human relations, but it is also used to ground philosophical and artistic work in a natural-scientific setting. Further, the Anthropocene is discussed and utilized as a powerful performative narrative about the future of humanity – or, indeed, the planet Earth after humans (Bonneuil, 2015; Cohen and Colebrook, 2016; Heise, 2016; Morton, 2013).

In humanistic scholarship, the popularity of the Anthropocene concept is related to contemporary development of environmental humanities, a set of multidisciplinary approaches that focus on human–nature relations. Based on a multitude of theoretical paradigms and methodologies, and analyzing a wide range of materials and texts, the field of environmental humanities is best characterized by its engagement with environmental issues. It understands cultural phenomena as always intertwined with natural (physical, material) beings, places and processes. With regard to environmental problems or problems in human–nature relations the most fundamental idea is that all these problems and issues are based on certain ideas, beliefs, attitudes, habits and practices that are cultural (culture referring here to the set of values, ideas, beliefs and practices that are functioning on all areas of human life).

The cultural Anthropocene comprises the creative and cultural-critical reactions to and representations of the geological-biological Anthropocene and its social aspects. Although the cultural aspects of the Anthropocene may seem (and currently often are) only supplementary in scientific debates, they are necessary to acknowledge and study, if we want to understand the ideas, beliefs and narratives behind human actions that are linked with the Anthropocene phenomena (Bonneuil, 2015; Palsson et al., 2013). For example, the notions of manifest destiny, perfectibility of humans, the linear ideas of progress, inexhaustibility of resources and other powerful cultural modes of thought cannot be reduced to or explained only by power relations, economic structures and the like, but they clearly have had and still have effects in the world. Same applies for cultural notions that have over the centuries acted as countering forces to those above. Moreover, the cultural perspective is important when we are interested in the experiential and psychological effects of the large-scale environmental changes taking place in the Anthropocene (Heise, 2016; Sörlin, 2012).

Art and cultural research discussing the cultural Anthropocene is often strikingly speculative when it comes to approaches and results (e.g. Herbrechter, 2013: 175–176). Generally, artists experiment with concepts and materials to open alternative perspectives or to create fictional worlds, and arts scholars and philosophers focus on understanding human conceptualizations, representations, interpretations and experiences of both actual and imaginative realities (Davis and Turpin, 2015; Morton, 2013, 2016).

In the context of the Anthropocene, much of this experimental, conceptual and creative work aims to speculate on the futures of humanity and the planet. For example, social scientist and novelist Bronislaw Szerszynski (2016) has suggested that science fiction helps to understand the emergence of the technosphere and to speculate on its futures on planet Earth. Indeed, whereas natural scientists and many social scientists are primarily looking back in time when discussing the Anthropocene, arts scholars have discussed Anthropocene from a future perspective. Arts scholar and philosopher Claire Colebrook (2014: 24) notes that the idea of detectable human imprints on the Earth’s stratigraphy may imply the presence of a future post-human spectator on planet Earth. In a similar vein, arts scholars Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin (2015: 9) problematize the alternative names (Technocene, Capitalocene, etc.) for the Anthropocene epoch, as these ‘cenes’ are based on temporally limited social phenomena that may not exist in future human or post-human cultures.

Together with the social approach to the Anthropocene, the cultural approach can have a double role in the future research practices. They would not only help in creating more discerning models for understanding human involvement in the Earth’s processes (and the Earth’s involvement in human processes); they would also point to the diverse social and cultural phenomena resistant to modelling and develop alternative methods to research such phenomena (Palsson et al., 2013: 6). These could include for example repressed or denied beliefs and ideological commitments, narratives of individual or collective identity or destiny, ideas about rights and responsibilities, and other forms of individual and collective thought that underlie human action.

The transdisciplinary challenge of the many Anthropocenes

As we have hopefully demonstrated, the geological, biological, social and cultural Anthropocene currently pose their questions in very diverse manners: the geological Anthropocene focuses on the physical realization of the Anthropocene phenomena while the biological Anthropocene observes the ecological effects of human activities. Social Anthropocene puts more emphasis on the structural social causes and cultural Anthropocene on the human-experienced and represented effects of the Anthropocene. These differences reflect the ways different fields of research collect and analyze data, form and reform their theories and methodologies – in more general terms, the ways knowledge production is typically understood in them.

Simultaneously, the emergence of truly transdisciplinary research concepts and methodologies has been anticipated and expected for several decades now, and fields such as global change research and Earth System science have been hailed by many researchers as potential nesting places for this new scholarly and intellectual development. One of the latest claims has been made by Brondizio et al. (2016) when stating that the Anthropocene concept has potentiality in bringing the different disciplines together, although with the probability of conceptual and methodological frictions. To acknowledge these frictions, we find it important to discuss the diverse theoretical and methodological characteristics involved.

The challenges are obviously different for each discipline. The natural sciences would have to be more open to the critical and speculative modes of knowledge production fostered in social sciences, arts and humanities. In return, the social scientists and humanities scholars should be precise and open about the limitations and possibilities of their concepts and methods, and perhaps more importantly, listen closely what kind of questions biologists are asking about the connection between society, culture and material planetary conditions. We believe that transdisciplinarity can be achieved only through a rigorous discussion on the deep-seated differences between natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. Whereas Brondizio et al. (2016) warn against ‘remaking historical bifurcations between and within the social and biophysical sciences and the humanities’, we believe it is important to acknowledge the intellectual force of these bifurcations, even as we are trying to let go of them.

The need for transdisciplinary research has already been proposed by multiple researchers discussing the Anthropocene challenge (e.g. Brondizio et al., 2016; Ellis et al., 2016; Lewis and Maslin, 2015; Oldfield et al., 2014; Palsson et al., 2013). What is less widely discussed in the context of the Anthropocene and its research is the pressing question of disciplinary differences – in other words, the antagonisms. Palsson et al. (2013: 6, 10) point to this direction when they call for research that ‘must go beyond the sterile polarization characteristic of the 1990’s “science wars”’, and again, when they highlight the difference between characterizing the Anthropocene ‘by means of quantitative data’ on one hand and understanding ‘how it perceives human interaction, culture, institutions, and societies’ on the other. Indeed, the Anthropocene as the epoch of global human influence clamors for both attentive measuring and careful interpretation, thus challenging the sciences and the humanities at their classic point of demarcation.

The divide between natural sciences (that seek to explain nature) and social sciences and humanities (that seek to understand human life), originating from the 19th century and provocatively re-articulated by CP Snow in his famous Rede Lecture The Two Cultures (Snow 1998), continues to influence our understanding of the scopes of different disciplines. To put it very crudely, whereas the natural sciences rely on empiricism and verifiability, the humanities build their body of knowledge through interpretative and critical modes of inspection (Heise, 2016; Herbrechter, 2013: 144; LeMenager, 2017; cf. Collini, 1998). During the 1980s, certain branches of humanities and social sciences (e.g. cultural studies, continental philosophy, science and technology studies) paid growing critical attention towards natural sciences, interpreting its societal role and its knowledge production as cultural constructions. Among the empirically oriented natural scientists these ideas were perceived as a direct provocation, resulting in the dire ‘science wars’ during the 1990s. At stake was not only the role and credibility of different scientific disciplines but the notion of knowledge itself (Herbrechter, 2013: 143–146).

The ‘science wars’ between postmodernists and scientists have ended long ago, resulting in what cultural critic Stefan Herbrechter (2013: 146) has called ‘a paralyzing stalemate’. However, the epistemological and methodological differences between the sciences and the humanities prevail, at least to a certain extent. The Anthropocene may even accelerate these differences, as it forces us acknowledge the importance of collecting and connecting multiple timescales, geographical, biological and cultural aspects of environmental change, numeric data and narratives, and so on and so forth. In other words, we have to measure and interpret, calculate and speculate.

Gathering and processing information about the Anthropocene is a vast challenge, but first we have to really understand the importance of the various modes of knowledge production that are needed to meet this challenge. As Stefan Herbrechter (2013: 175) notes, the production of hybrid forms of knowledge typical in interdisciplinary processes will gradually change ‘the entire disciplinary landscape and knowledge structure’. According to him, this will inevitably happen for the humanities because of the challenges coming from new technologies and new socio-economical structures. We believe that the disciplinary landscape and knowledge structure will change on a much greater scale when the disciplines join to tackle the Anthropocene challenge.

In future, a definite change will likely be the faith also for the four different approaches we have defined. There are many reasons for this. For example, it is likely that natural sciences are forced to direct their attention on research agendas and implementations that can be difficult to approve by politicians or business with vested interests, such as cutting the global greenhouse gasses in half every decade after 2020 (Rockström et al., 2017). Thus, in order to implement effective science-based solutions, natural scientists need to become, rudely speaking, social scientists and some form of public science-advocates in order to have deeper and faster impact in the political sphere. In addition, the position of social sciences and humanities, for example, is rapidly changing in universities around the world: in order to justify their meaning, they also have to contribute increasingly in solving contemporary anthropogenic environmental problems. To tackle these questions, scholars are developing new methodology under research fields such as environmental humanities, post-colonial studies and economic literary criticism.

Conclusions

The scientific debates about the Anthropocene express the potency of the concept. In fact, as a quick overview of its uses in geological, biological, social and cultural fields of research shows, the Anthropocene is more than a name for an epoch and in this sense has a significantly wider specter of meanings than, say, the concept of the Holocene. In this paper, we have deliberately used, besides the stratigraphically defined geological Anthropocene, the term Anthropocene to refer both to the actual global anthropogenic changes in the environment and to the emergence of ideas and conceptualizations that mark the awareness about global environmental effects of human activities. Together, these multiple actual and conceptual events designate the Anthropocene epoch. As the Anthropocene condition already deeply affects both the concrete physical environments and processes and sociocultural relations and meanings, the Anthropocene requires refined research approaches that can together grasp its complexities.

The plural approach of the Anthropocene uses the stratigraphically defined Anthropocene as a geological point of reference when structuring the historical time, as it has been in the case of the Holocene. However, the other Anthropocene approaches are not necessarily interested in any specific point in time. (This, of course, does not mean that they not interested on dates, years or decades.) Instead, the biological Anthropocene tracks and quantifies the growing impact of humans on the natural world and their interactions. The social Anthropocene directs attention to historical processes, social change and causalities. The cultural Anthropocene focuses on the individually and collectively produced and experienced meanings of occurring and predicted social, natural and environmental phenomena.

Our division into four Anthropocenes conforms to the established divide between natural and social sciences and humanities, which is obviously both the weakness and the strength of our suggestion. Nevertheless, the specific research question and object of the study designates which of the Anthropocene approaches is maybe first emphasized and how the research agenda is demarcated – sometimes it is driven by the perspectives of one discipline, sometimes it is driven from the beginning towards transdisciplinary research. For example, temporal location of the environmental changes in question by biological approach may be first needed before it is even possible to examine their social backgrounds. If knowledge about these changes alters, the understanding of social backgrounds has to be adapted and can even change radically.

The different approaches to Anthropocene are not exclusive, they are a heuristic device to understand that the long and diverse history of human–nature interactions necessitates a multiplicity of approaches. As always, the object of scientific inquiry is not a given but is framed by the research questions. The key research questions invoked by the general notion of Anthropocene are: What are the specific global human-induced changes we are currently looking at? When and where did they originate? How did they spread? What were the prime driving factors and what kind of dynamism is there between these factors? Do we focus on the point of origin, or some key dynamic of change or what?

The multiple possible ways one can answer these questions makes it crystal clear why there never can be one beginning of the Anthropocene, one narrative of the Anthropocene or one culprit – even though many struggles over the meaning of the Anthropocene seem to focus on the issue of social, ideological, or cultural responsibility. And giving one set of answers does not invalidate others – another enduring misconception of the current Anthropocene debate.

Footnotes

Funding

We acknowledge the generous support from the Kone Foundation. This is a contribution to the integrative Climate Change Biology (iCCB) programme.

Notes

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