Queer(ing) Moves: Beyond Anthropocene, Toward Convivial, Sustainable Futures

Abstract

The essay will outline possibilities for be(com)ing other-Wise convivial, interbetween. To this end, relational possibilities for embodied enlivening are described as queering practice for moving from Anthropocene toward sustainable futures. Based on exploring certain qualities of be(com)ing queer some perspectives on queer futures are discussed. Related to Merleau-Ponty’s eco-phenomenology the paper then opens up possibilities for an embodied, convivial relation with nature (“con-naturality”) and social life (“con-sociability”). Finally, queering the type of the Anthropos, provides pathways for “anthropo-decentric” transformations toward a convivial future as an “ecocene.”

Keywords:

• Anthropocene
• conviviality
• embodiment
• future
• phenomenology
• queer
• sustainable

Notes

1 Thus, with Serres, humanity became the most successful parasite of any invasive species (Serres, 2007). This parasitic being is constructing a hominiscence by appropriating and territorialisation the entire planet while taking without giving (Serres, 2012). For Serres this state-of-affairs calls for “learning to form a new natural contract to be woven into our existing sense of the social contract” (Serres, 1995). For him this would allow recognising Biogea, which refers to the formidable residual reality that keeps us alive, transcends us and can eradicate us (Serres, 2012, 2014, p. 48).

2 The term “intra-action” describes how entanglement precedes thingness. Coined by Karen Barad (2007), the term is used to replace “interaction,” which necessitates pre-established bodies that then participate in action with each other. Intra-action understands agency as not an inherent property of an individual or human to be exercised, but as a dynamism of forces (Barad, 2007, p. 141). Ongoing relational dynamics are responsible for how things emerge. As part of this dynamic nexus, all elements or “things” are constantly exchanging and diffracting, mutually influencing, and are processed inseparably.

3 The Castilian term, convivencia, was originally referring to the historical and disputed coexistence of Jews, Muslims and Christians in Medieval Iberia (see Glick, 1992) and emphasized concrete local specificity over disembodied abstraction. Convivència refers to mutual respect in a shared use of public space, and is often perceived as a bottom-up, neighbor-to-neighbor process whereby residents work out solutions to conflicts among themselves.