Local Knowledge, Global Change: Heather Davis & Zoe Todd’s "On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene"
Heather Davis and Zoe Todd worked together to write their essay, “On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene” in ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies. This journal aims to provide a platform for critical work about “space and place” in the social sciences. Davis' collaboration with Todd was vital to the credibility of the entire article. In speaking about African slaves, Davis and Todd write, “We do not wish to appropriate these narratives.” As a white Canadian woman, Davis makes clear she doesn’t wish to appropriate the stories of black and indigenous people when writing about the subject. Todd can speak to her experiences as an Indigenous Canadian, but they both make clear the african experience is not their own.
Zoe Todd is of Métis descent. She learned about her Métis heritage through her father, and has gone on to include her ancestry in her studies.The central focus of her research is the relationship between humans and animals (particularly fish), in the context of Candadian settler colonialism. The presence of Zoe Todd, this accomplished indegnous scholar, as a co-writer infuses the essay with the firsthand experience of indigenous people, so we did not have to rely on a white woman’s retelling of indigenous stories or beliefs.
Davis and Todd argue for locating the beginning of the Anthropocene at the onset of colonization of the Americas. The genocide of the indegenous population, perpetuated by European settlers, killed or displaced nearly 50 million over the course of a century. Without indigenous farming practices and forest regrowth, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere spiked, creating what is called the ”Orbis Spike.” The Orbis Spike is the earliest proof of humanity’s impact on the Earth, or the beginning of the Anthropocene. Davis and Todd posit that the definition of the Anthropocene as it stands flattens the current climate crisis into a problem caused by all and to the detriment of all.
The Anthropocene continues a logic of the universal which is structured to sever the relations between mind, body, and land. In dating the Anthropocene from the time of colonization, the historical and ideological links between the events would become obvious, providing a basis for the possibility of decolonization within this framework. (761)
The essay argues that using local knowledge, specifically indiginous “place-thought,” is our best resource in addressing global issues like climate change and dismantling the legacy of colonization. In viewing the Anthropocene and its effects on the earth as a totality, we should not fall into the trap of perceiving the human race as a monolith. Due to their unique connection to the land, indigenous people know how to maintain their land better than the imperial forces which expropriated it from them.
In seeking to “tether the Anthropocene to colonialism” Davis and Todd move beyond the vision of the earth as having been improved upon by western industrialization and imperialism. They wish to further the discourse of the Anthropocene by rejecting the philosophy of the “noosphere” and embracing that of Indigenous Place-Thought. The noosphere was defined by Teilhard de Chardin as “the world of thought” - distinct from the “geosphere” and “biosphere” - to mark the growing role played by mankind’s brainpower and technological talents in shaping its own future and environment.” This way of thinking establishes a separate sphere of thought above the earth and its inhabitants “replicating the foundational and epistemic violence of European colonialism.” The issue of universalism in the current perception of the Anthropocene is directly reflected in the theory of the noosphere which prizes the violent and genocidal transformation of land and community to fit an “idealized version of the world modelled on the sameness and replication of the homeland.
As an alternative to current western systems of thought, Davis and Todd propose Indigenous “Place-Thought” as a way to expand and extend the narrative of the Anthropocene. They draw on Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee history and philosophy from Vanessa Watt’s "Indigenous Place-thought & Agency amongst Humans and Non-humans (First Woman and Sky Woman Go on a European World Tour!)" to describe the concept of Place-Thought saying, “Place-Thought is based upon the premise that land is alive and thinking and that humans and non-humans derive agency through the extensions of these thoughts.” Where settler colonialism has severed the relationship between humans and the land, Place-Thought allows us to expand our notion of the Anthropocene to envelope all those who have been dispossessed, including plants and animals.
Towards the end of the essay, Davis and Todd ask us to think about the relationship between humans and the land in an evenmore radical way. They write:
In order to adequately address climate change and other environmental catastrophes we also need to seriously think through and enact processes of decolonization. This involves self-governance for Indigenous people, the return of stolen lands, and reparations for the descendants of captured Africans, but it also fundamentally questions the bounds and the legitimacy of the nation-state structure itself. As we are already seeing around the world, people will not simply sit still in the face of ecological destruction, but will move, adapt, and try to find ways of recomposing with their kin and companion species. (775)
Here, they open up the issue of decolonizing the anthropocene for further reflection by not just calling for decolonization, with emphasis on global, structural change. They question the legitimacy of the nation/state structure because in the face of anthropogenic climate disasters, it renders it harder and often impossible to maintain proper living conditions. This is due to how the nation/state structure confines its people to a specific place, trapping them within arbitrarily defined borders. These lines on a map have no bearing on how the Earth grows and changes over time or how the beings that live on earth change with it.
Davis and Todd are suggesting that for the human race to come out of the anthropocene thriving, a return to a more nomadic life-style may be in order. Indigenous populations lived this way because they could not change practices crucial to their survival just because an animal migrated north to find better weather, or crops stopped growing well within artificial boundaries. They argue this return will, “Rather than positioning the salvation of Man – the liberation of humanity from the horrors of the Anthropocene – in the technics and technologies of the noösphere, we call here for a tending once again to relations, to kin, to life, longing, and care." This means the freedom of movement which is restricted by the nation/state will foster a new and deeper connection between people and the land they live on. Industrialized capitalism has made many people think we are not dependent on the Earth’s body, but this was never an option for indigenous peoples, and we must listen to their voices “if we are to adapt with any grace to what is coming."
(GG and TM)
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