Marco Armiero
KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden)
Dismantling the Wasteocene
Toxic Narratives vs Commoning Practices at the Peripheries of Capitalist Modernity
The current COVID19 pandemic has often been depicted as the ultimate equalizer; the virus–it has been said–does not make any difference. Rich and poor are all together in the midst of a global ecological crisis. In this respect, the narrative about COVID19 seems not so different from that of climate change or, even, of the Anthropocene. Instead, I argue that COVID19 is again proving that class, race, gender, and historical inequalities do matter. In my talk, I will touch upon those inequalities, exploring, in particular, the toxic narratives that invisibilize and normalize injustices. I propose the category of the Wasteocene against that of the Anthropocene, maintaining that Wasteocene better reveals the unjust socio-ecological relationships that ensure class, race, heteronormative, and patriarchal privileges through the production of wasted people and places. Against this background of socio-ecological inequalities and narrative violence, I will speculate about the counter-hegemonic practices and narratives which can dismantle the Wasteocene, fostering prefigurative politics and liberatory imaginaries.
Marco Armiero is director of the Environmental Humanities Laboratory at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, where he is also Associate Professor of Environmental History. He has been awarded the Barron Visiting Professor in Environmental Humanities from Princeton University (2021-2022). He works at the intersections of environmental humanities, environmental history, and political ecology, focusing on the politicization/depoliticization of the environment and the connections between social and environmental injustices. His publications cover various themes, from the nationalization of nature to migration and the environment, from toxic autobiographies to the environmental history of fascism. He is the president of the European Society for Environmental History.