The Politics of Earth Stewardship in the Uneven Anthropocene - Earth Stewardship: Linking Ecology and Ethics in Theory and Practice - page 137

demonstrate the ways transnational networks of grassroots organizations can chal-
lenge their negative social and environmental impacts, and thus foster socio-
ecological resiliency.

Keywords Global assemblages ￿ Political ecology ￿ Uneven development

10.1 Introduction

At the beginning of the twenty-fi rst century, Crutzen and Stoermer ( 2000 ) proposed
that we are now in the Anthropocene, a geologic epoch characterized by human
dominance over the Earth's ecosystems. For many, the Anthropocene has become
an important framework for thinking about the processes and consequences of
global environmental change, particularly global climate change, widespread
species extinctions, and the erosion of the “global life support system” (Steffen
et al. 2011 ; Viola and Basso 2015 in this volume [Chap. 24 ]). For others, the
Anthropocene is the affi rmation of the long-held proposition that nature and society
coproduce each other, and that capitalism has become the dominate logic of this
coproduction process (see Dussel 2003 ; Swyngedouw 2013 ). We write this chapter
to stimulate a conversation with our colleagues in ecology, philosophy, and other
disciplines about Earth stewardship in the Anthropocene. 1 We do so by discussing
how some social theorists are thinking about the Anthropocene's emergent proper-
ties of scale-defying governance, with particular attention to the role social and
economic inequalities play in the transformation of the world's ecosystems, com-
munities, and more broadly, global approaches to Earth stewardship. In this chapter,

1 During the last decade, the Ecological Society of America has initiated a broad Earth Stewardship
platform (Chapin et al. 2015 this volume [Chap. 12 ] ). This platform includes a call for a more
action-oriented science that is oriented toward understanding pathways to sustainability (Chapin
et al. 2011 , see also Sayre et al. 2013 ).
P. Robbins
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Madison , WI , USA
e-mail: [e-mail]
F. Massardo
Universidad de Magallanes , Puerto Williams , Chile
Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity , Santiago , Chile
e-mail: [e-mail] ; [e-mail]
R. Rozzi
Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies, University of North Texas,
Denton , TX , USA
Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity , Santiago , Chile
Universidad de Magallanes , Punta Arenas , Chile
e-mail: [e-mail]