Anthropocene Studies and Environmental Humanities
Summary
The emergence of the Anthropocene as a critical concept has prompted scholars across the humanities and social sciences to examine the intertwined geological, cultural and political dimensions of human influence on the Earth system. Anthropocene studies trace how industrialisation, urbanisation and globalised resource extraction have reshaped planetary boundaries, while environmental humanities interrogate the values, narratives and power relations that underlie both environmental degradation and efforts to address it. This interdisciplinary field combines historical analyses of colonial and capitalist trajectories, ethical reflections on human responsibility and literary explorations of more‐than‐human subjectivities. Researchers seek to move beyond deterministic framings of human impact by highlighting how social choices, political economy and civic engagement can reconfigure socioecological futures. With a global perspective, the field addresses practical applications such as community‐driven restoration, decolonial approaches to resource governance and the design of inclusive policy frameworks. By bridging scientific knowledge with cultural critique and imaginative strategies, Anthropocene studies and environmental humanities offer integrated pathways for understanding and responding to the entwined crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and social inequality.
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Anthropocene Studies and Environmental Humanities publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in anthropocene studies and environmental humanities across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Anthropocene: A proposed geological epoch marked by significant human alteration of Earth’s systems.
Environmental humanities: An interdisciplinary field exploring cultural, ethical and historical dimensions of human–environment relations.
Political economy: The study of how economic systems, power structures and policy decisions interact to shape social and environmental outcomes.
Post-humanism: An intellectual approach that decouples human exceptionalism by considering the agency and interrelations of non-human entities.
Ecologies of repair: Conceptual frameworks describing collaborative processes by which communities and more-than-human collectives restore damaged environments.
Homogenisation: The process by which diverse biological species or cultural practices become uniform under globalising pressures.
References
- Beyond “Geological Nature,” Fatalistic Determinism and Pop‐Anthropocene: Social, Cultural, and Political Aspects of the Anthropocene. Earth's Future (2024).
- Humanities for the Environment—A Manifesto for Research and Action. Humanities (2015).
- The Loss of Diversity in the Anthropocene Biological and Cultural Dimensions. Frontiers in Political Science (2021).
- Ecologies of Repair: A Post-human Approach to Other-Than-Human Natures. Frontiers in Psychology (2021).
About these summaries
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