Postcolonial Ecologies, Extinction Events, and Entangled Humanism

This chapter examines the contributions of postcolonial ecologists such as Rob Nixon, Anna Tsing, and Dipesh Chakrabarty. Those ecologists are invited to absorb the findings of earth scientists such as Michael Benton and Clive Finlayson, who examine the sources of two extinction events: the near end of life itself 250 million years ago and the extinction of the Neanderthal 280,000 years ago. These explorations extend our grasp of the bumpiness of planetary processes such as climate, methane bursts, and volcanoes, and they underline how important it is for humanists to engage the earth sciences. Entangled humanism is one of the gathering places where the findings of this study can be assembled. When multiple modes of entanglement with other human cultures, living beings, and nonliving processes are emphasized, we may be in a better position to offer a new reading of passive nihilism appropriate to this time. Passive nihilists of today admit planet warming, but residues from received doctrines of humanism and sociocentrism persist on the visceral register of culture in ways that may recall discussion of scars from the past in chapter 3. The task is to deploy role experiments and other strategies to transfigure those residues and to prepare for participation in the politics of swarming.