ABSTRACT
This chapter differentiates between five Anthropocene narratives and sketches a distinct critique of each of them from the perspective of postcolonial studies and ecocriticism. It explains the perspectives of postcolonial ecocriticism and the broader field of environmental humanities. The chapter introduces the Anthropocene concept and distinguishes five narratives of the Anthropocene. It provides a critical discussion of these narratives, from the perspective of postcolonial ecocriticism and environmental humanities. The chapter sketches, in a stylized manner, how a postcolonial ecocritical analysis of the five Anthropocene narratives can unveil different degrees of openness and reflectedness towards cultural differences, the positionality of interests, questions of ecojustice, implicit reproductions of power structures, experiences of environmental violence, and rupture. In contrast, the technological narrative, while partly a continuation and radicalization of the Great Transformation narrative, promotes large-scale and intensive interventions into the Earth system, such as geoengineering.
