Anthropocene Psychology: Being Human In A More-than-human World (concepts For Critical Psychology)

This ground-breaking book critically extends the psychological project, seeking to investigate the relations between human and more-than-human worlds against the backdrop of the Anthropocene by emphasising the significance of encounter, interaction and relationships. Interdisciplinary environmental theorist Matthew Adams draws inspiration from a wealth of ideas emerging in human-animal studies, anthrozoology, multi-species ethnography and posthumanism, offering a framing of collective anthropogenic ecological crises to provocatively argue that the Anthropocene is also an invitation - to become conscious of the ways in which human and nonhuman are inextricably connected. Through a series of strange encounters between human and nonhuman worlds, Adams argues for the importance of cultivating attentiveness to the specific and situated ways in which the fates of multiple species are bound together in the Anthropocene. Throughout the book this argument is put into practice, incorporating everything from Pavlov's dogs, broiler chickens, urban trees, grazing sheep and beached whales, to argue that the Anthropocene can be good to think with, conducive to a seeing ourselves and our place in the world with a renewed sense of connection, responsibility and love. Building on developments in feminist and social theory, anthropology, ecopsychology, environmental psychology, (post)humanities, psychoanalysis and phenomenology, this is fascinating reading for academics and students in the field of critical psychology, environmental psychology, and human-animal studies. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Frontispiece 6 Dedication 8 Contents 10 Foreword 14 Acknowledgements 16 1. Welcome to the Anthropocene: A parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity 18 Introduction 18 Deep time 20 A parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity 22 Summary of chapters 24 Notes 26 References 27 2. Why Pavlov’s dogs still matter: Animals, experimental psychology and the Anthropocene invitation 30 Introduction 30 Contemporary retellings: ‘hard-set laws’ and a ‘comfortable recovery’ 33 The ‘animal turn’, multi-species scholarship and psychology 36 Chronic experiments in the kingdom of dogs 38 Psychic secretions and conditional reflexes 41 A subject-transforming dance 42 The tower of silence 46 The temperament of a dog 48 Reversing the moral abandonment of being 50 Anthropocene psychology? 52 Finally: recognising relationships 53 Notes 55 References 57 3. Eating animals in the Anthropocene: The broiler chicken, speciesism and vegatopia 66 Introduction 66 Anthropocene chicken 67 Industrialised animal agriculture 69 The never explicitly stated fact 71 Resolving dissonance becomes habitual, goes viral, gets outsourced 74 Speciesism and beyond 77 Disclosing cultural secrets of systemic violence 81 Vegatopia? 82 Killing without making killable 86 Veganism as decolonial act? 87 Finally 89 Notes 90 References 92 4. Crafting new human–animal attachments: Do Anthropoceneans dream of eclectic sheep? 102 Introduction 102 Human–sheep histories 104 Enclosure, colonialism and industrial revolution 105 How we see sheep 108 Situating human–sheep encounters 111 The sheep: a pen portrait 113 Learning to looker 116 Enacting the dream of a flourishing multispecies community? 119 Finally 121 Notes 122 References 124 5. Heartbreaking losses in real places: Losing and finding solace in the Anthropocene 130 Introduction: bearing small dispatches 130 Tonight I’ve said my goodbyes 132 Heartbreaking losses in real places 135 Solastalgia: the home become suddenly unhomely 138 Colonialism and the imposed transformations of place 141 Anthropocene as invitation 145 I am the river, the river is me 146 Finally: on finding solace 153 Notes 155 References 155 6. Between the whale and the kāuri tree: Multi-species encounters, indigenous knowledge and ethical relationality in the Anthropocene 164 Introduction 165 Beaching whales 165 Indigenising the Anthropocene 168 Tools for employing Indigenous ontologies 170 The porosity of boundaries: whales and Maori 172 A sign from the sea? 174 Kauri dieback 175 Anthropocene psychology: thinking with the forest? 177 Between the ocean and the forest 180 Finally: Anthropocene stories 187 Notes 190 References 192 7. Afterword 202 References 204 Index 206 This book seeks to investigate the relations between human and more-than-human worlds against the backdrop of the Anthropocene, examining the way in which the Anthropocene offers a framing of collective anthropogenic ecological crises and is an invitation to re-evaluate human influence and interaction with the world around us.