Fabienne Will’s research while affiliated with Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and other places

This book examines the role of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) in public and scholarly discussions of the meaning of the Anthropocene proposal. The status of the Anthropocene, both as a geoscientific concept and as a cultural concept becoming increasingly familiar in the public sphere, has been highly controversial. While geoscientists focus on possible geological markers and periodisation, the social sciences, environmental humanities, and creative arts have taken up the Anthropocene as a cultural concept to make sense of the planetary environmental crisis and contemporary society. This book documents intra-, inter-, and transdisciplinary debates, particularly, although not limited to, how different scholarly disciplines have responded to the Anthropocene proposal. The authors analyse how the AWG has become the focal point of a debate that straddles the boundaries between academic disciplines and public perceptions of science. The AWG thus serves as a case of the globalisation of science in terms of the global interconnectedness of scientific disciplines and the cultural significance of the Anthropocene proposal.

The Anthropocene’s status as a distinct chronostratigraphic epoch has been debated among a broad spectrum of disciplines, including geology, Earth Systems Science (ESS), and environmental studies. While some scholars date its beginning to the Industrial Revolution, others suggest earlier markers, such as the advent of agriculture or human civilization, or later events like the twentieth century’s “Great Acceleration.” The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), established in 2009, has adopted an essential role in shaping this debate. This chapter explores the AWG’s contributions to forming a scientific community around the Anthropocene concept and to the broader inter- and multidisciplinary discourse. It examines the disciplinary and academic backgrounds of AWG members, their patterns of collaboration, and their influence on the scientific debate through a bibliographic analysis of their publications from 2000 through 2021. By assessing the visibility of these works within a larger body of Anthropocene-related literature, the chapter analyzes the AWG’s impact on the field, highlighting the group’s role in framing the Anthropocene as a significant scientific and geoscientific topic.

The Anthropocene proposal has been widely debated in the past 20 years across the whole academic spectrum. It forces actors from different disciplines to leave comforting long-established cultures of knowledge production to favor an active negotiation process about anthropogenic aspects beyond disciplinary boundaries. Besides these negotiation processes, this chapter examines the standing of the AWG outside the geoscientific community and the potentials and limits that humanities and social science scholars ascribe to the geoscientific Anthropocene concept. The findings are based on 25 expert interviews with central actors of the Anthropocene debate and a comprehensive literature review (2000–2020). Particular emphasis is placed on the provocative potential that the geoscientific Anthropocene concept represents for other disciplines because it illustrates the conflicts that structure Anthropocene discourses at disciplinary interfaces. These conflicts are primarily based on disciplinary methodological differences, but to a considerable extent, they are also rooted in a competition for epistemic leadership (interpretive sovereignty). Using selected thematic key topics, this chapter exposes the structure, course, and consequences of transdisciplinary negotiation processes. On this basis, it highlights the potential of the Anthropocene as a possible academic game-changer leading to a new form of scientific collaboration. This chapter highlights the downside of conflicting Anthropocene discourses and argues for an even broader interdisciplinarity of Anthropocene research.

The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) is a unique mission-oriented academic entity embedded in the international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) of geological sciences. The AWG’s dealings are analysed as presented in newsletters and annual reports. A timeline (2006–2023) of events and activities illustrates the AWG’s functioning, including disruptive events, systemic quarrels and innovative partnerships, portraying: specific matters like the Geological Time Scale (GTS) as a scientific tool; intra-community struggles for epistemic leadership; the intellectual autonomy of the AWG to aggregate scientific concepts of Earth System Sciences (ESS) and geological Stratigraphy; and ways of cooperation of geosciences and social sciences and the workings of a bureaucratic, scientific apparatus. Analysis reveals the AWG as an autonomous academic collective nestled within the confines of a bureaucratic system yet displaying remarkable intellectual resilience amidst systemic challenges. The dealings of the AWG illustrate a specific ‘economy of knowledge’ engaging with promotors and being aware of the societal relevance of geoscience expertise. The findings describe AWG’s distinctive positioning within the scientific community, underscoring its pivotal role in shaping geological discourse despite being bureaucratically stalled.

This chapter, borrowing from research derived from the “Anthropocene Media Project” (Sklair, The Anthropocene in global media: Neutralizing the risk, Routledge 2021), discusses how the members of the AWG engaged with individuals and institutions outside the Earth/geosciences and the consequences of these engagements for the reception of the Anthropocene notion. Media reports and scholarly publications from many countries provide evidence for the idea of the “Anthropo-scene,” introduced by Jamie Lorimer, drawing attention to the appeal of the Anthropocene notion for scholars in environmental humanities, social sciences, and creative arts and, in general, to fields beyond the geological Anthropocene.

This chapter summarizes the analyses presented in this volume, focusing on the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) executing its specific mandate as a disciplinary working group within the system of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). The AWG employed an interdisciplinary methodology when amalgamating Earth System Science (ESS), geological stratigraphy, and contemporary observational techniques. The key conclusions were presented in October 2023 and subsequently rejected by the IUGS and its Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS). Concerning broader societal impact and public visibility, the debate sparked by the AWG’s pronouncements attests to far-reaching implications of geological and cultural interpretations of the Anthropocene concept, extending well beyond the disciplinary confines of the geosciences. The concept of the Anthropocene aids in understanding the tectonic shifts associated with Earth’s and global society’s transition beyond the epoch that geology calls the Holocene. In summary, the case of the AWG demonstrates the possibilities and limitations of interdisciplinary cooperation among diverse academic disciplines addressing the transformative impact of the Anthropocene concept toward a post-normal framing of Earth Sciences, including geology.

Proposing a novel geological epoch, the Anthropocene, acknowledges the impact of anthropogenic change at the planetary level and suggests that the Holocene, which began approximately 11,700 years ago, has ended. This book examines how the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), a third-level subordinate body within the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), has led the debate about the Anthropocene concept among scientists and, significantly, within a wider global audience. For geoscientists, the focus has been on possible geological markers of a novel periodization in the Geological Time Scale (GTS) and the appropriate scientific methods to empirically validate a new geological epoch. However, scholars from other disciplines argue that the Anthropocene’s meaning extends beyond and differs significantly from geological markers, periodization, or time. The AWG evolved in this tension, seeking to make sense of the notion of a geological Anthropocene, drawing on various geoscientific and scholarly findings. We demonstrate how the AWG has become a focal point of a global debate that straddles the boundaries between academic disciplines and public perceptions of science.

The Anthropocene is a reflexive concept and an opportunity for interdisciplinarity in the area of teaching and learning. Developing didactic approaches for the Anthropocene requires understanding the origins of the debate. This article therefore first reconstructs the interconnections of the Anthropocene with Earth System Sciences. It then briefly examines climate and environmental history approaches in current curricula, demonstrating why earth system knowledge is the logical next step in developing timely perspectives for the didactics of history. Lastly, using examples like industrialization or the post-war period, it illustrates how earth system knowledge can enhance history lessons. Through technofossils, a material- and object-centered approach is showcased, revealing various temporalities and global/local interconnections.

A common sense: The Anthropocene was originally understood by Crutzen as not only representing humanity’s influence on Earth’s geological record (he was well aware of earlier anthropogenic impacts), but also reflecting a system with physical characteristics that had, since widespread industrialization, departed from the prolonged, relatively stable conditions of the Holocene. An Anthropocene concept anchored to begin in the mid-twentieth century is aligned with both the Great Acceleration and a fundamental shift in Earth’s state. Understanding the Anthropocene in this way would prevent the current confusion of the term meaning different things in different contexts. It complies with the term’s originally intended meaning, and also reflects a clear evidence-based geological signature. The concept is congruent with the term’s use in Earth-system science and more widely, such as by new and emerging institutions, such as the Center for Anthropocene Studies at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology, Daejeon, South Korea, the Centre of Excellence for Anthropocene History at Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology and the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany. It highlights geology’s role in addressing problems of societal concern and is also applicable in the social sciences and humanities with respect to the enormous societal upheavals, changes in energy production and globalization of trade that have taken place. Policy and international law will also benefit from an unambiguous definition, putting beyond doubt that we are now in a time of transformed planetary functioning wrought by overwhelming human impacts. (The authors list above includes the 51 cosignatories, see supplement)