The cene scene: Who gets to theorize global time and how do we center indigenous and black futurities?

Abstract

The Anthropocene, Capitalocene, and Plantationocene are propositions for new ways of understanding the role of people on the planet. The theories hold that humans, capitalism, or the logic of plantation agriculture have so fundamentally reworked the world that we can demarcate these as new eras in the planet's history. In this article, we argue that these narratives privilege Eurocentric narratives of human history, failing to adequately engage Black and Indigenous scholarship and theorizations on the nature and origin of environmental change. We argue for scholars grappling with questions of environmental change to include Black and Indigenous scholarship, experience, and thought when theorizing new histories of the planet.