Future Child: Pedagogy and the Post-Anthropocene

Abstract

For many, the Anthropocene foreshadows the apocalypse: a fertile terrain to speculate about the future, which can displace the now. We aim to reconceptualize this era, drawing inspiration from those working to imagine possible eras for the post-Anthropocene—imaginaries that do not deny the material histories and urgencies of the present. In particular, we seek to transform the ways children are figured in this epoch. In this conceptual essay, we (re)consider the Anthropocene, explore how figurations of the child tap into environmental futurism, and call for a pedagogy of the post-Anthropocene which rejects future-orientations that negate children as bearers of their own experience and agents of their own purpose.