Scan barcode
A review by iced_mochas
A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None by Kathryn Yusoff
4.0
“The birth of a geologic subject in the Anthropocene made without an examination of this history is a deadly erasure, rebirth without responsibility.”
I really loved this experimental intervention into mainstream ideas about the world as it is, and how it came to be. Kathryn Yusoff’s work is a bold critique of [white] geology and [white] theories of the Anthropocene, in particular, the process of erasing histories of racism and destruction, and the depoliticising of its actors.
Though the text can be heavily academic and repetitive in its written style – and challenging to read in some instances – it also contains some beautiful reflective passages which I found really moving. This short book has developed my thinking around the climate crisis and made me think twice about how the term ‘Anthropocene’ is used around me. There’s this term ‘colonial universalism’ which has stuck with me. I also found myself highlighting all the passages on mining and extraction which feel especially pertinent in the current moment: mining as the problem, mining as the suggested solution.
Although I don’t think Yusoff is Black (and positionality is important for a title like this), she draws heavily from Black Studies and leading thinkers such as Saidiya Hartman, Sylvia Wynter, Christina Sharpe, Dionne Brand, Tina Campt, James Baldwin and others.
To sum up what Yusoff is encouraging us to think about, it’s this:
“The Anthropocene cannot dust itself clean from the inventory of which it was made: from the cut hands that bled the rubber, the slave children sold by weight of flesh, the sharp blades of sugar, all the lingering dislocation from geography, dusting through diasporic generations.”
I really loved this experimental intervention into mainstream ideas about the world as it is, and how it came to be. Kathryn Yusoff’s work is a bold critique of [white] geology and [white] theories of the Anthropocene, in particular, the process of erasing histories of racism and destruction, and the depoliticising of its actors.
Though the text can be heavily academic and repetitive in its written style – and challenging to read in some instances – it also contains some beautiful reflective passages which I found really moving. This short book has developed my thinking around the climate crisis and made me think twice about how the term ‘Anthropocene’ is used around me. There’s this term ‘colonial universalism’ which has stuck with me. I also found myself highlighting all the passages on mining and extraction which feel especially pertinent in the current moment: mining as the problem, mining as the suggested solution.
Although I don’t think Yusoff is Black (and positionality is important for a title like this), she draws heavily from Black Studies and leading thinkers such as Saidiya Hartman, Sylvia Wynter, Christina Sharpe, Dionne Brand, Tina Campt, James Baldwin and others.
To sum up what Yusoff is encouraging us to think about, it’s this:
“The Anthropocene cannot dust itself clean from the inventory of which it was made: from the cut hands that bled the rubber, the slave children sold by weight of flesh, the sharp blades of sugar, all the lingering dislocation from geography, dusting through diasporic generations.”