Navigating (Post-)Anthropocenic Times of Crisis: A Critical Cartography of Hope

Departing from the (post-)Anthropocenic crisis state of today's world, fuelled by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, various post-truth populist follies, and an apocalyptic WW3-scenario that has been hanging in the air since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, this article argues for the possibility – and necessity – of an affirmative posthumanist-materialist mapping of hope. Embedded in the Deleuzoguattarian-Braidottian (see Deleuze and Guattari 2005 [1980];Braidotti 2011 [1994]) methodology of critical cartography, and infused with critical posthumanist, new materialist, and queer theoretical perspectives, this cartography of hope is sketched out against two permacrisis-infused positionalities: nostalgic humanism and tragic (post-)humanism. Forced to navigate between these two extremes, the critical cartography of hope presented here explores hope in nume-rous historico-philosophical (re-)configurations: from the premodern ‘hope-as-all-too-human', to a more politicised early modern ‘hope-as-(politically-)human' – representing hope's first paradigm shift (politicisation), and from a four decades-long neoliberal redrawing of hope as ‘no-more-hope' – hope's second shift (depoliticisation) – to a critical (new) materialist plea to de-anthropocentrise and re-politicise hope – hope's third and final post-Anthropocenic shift (re-politicisation). By mapping these (re-)configurations of hope, a philosophical plea is made for hope as a material(ist) praxis that can help us better understand – and counter – these extractive late capitalist, neoliberal more-than-human crisis times. © Edinburgh University Press.

Being haunted by-and reorienting toward-what ‘matters’ in times of (the COVID-19) crisis: A critical pedagogical cartography of response-ability

Recent new materialist and posthumanist research in curriculum and pedagogy studies is focusing more and more on the intertwinement between social justice, fairness, and accountability, and how to put these ideals to use to create inclusive, consciousness-raising canons, curricula, and pedagogies that take the dehumanized and the more-than-human into account. Especially pedagogical responsibility, often rephrased as ‘response-ability’ to accentuate the entanglements that this notion engenders versus forgotten or forcefully eradicated knowledges, and between teacher and student as intra-active learners, is highlighted in this ethico-political turn. In this chapter, a critical pedagogical cartography of response-ability is sketched out to philosophically expand on-and also better anchor-the above turn. This critical cartography is put together at the backdrop of critical new materialist reflections with regards to the COVID-19 crisis;a crisis demanding a pedagogical but also ethico-political reorientation toward the hauntological powers of past-present-future injustices, the thick material present, and a more response-able engagement with the world. © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Vivienne Bozalek, Michalinos Zembylas, Siddique Motala and Dorothee Hölscher.