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Forerunners: Ideas First
A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None
Rewriting the “origin stories” of the Anthropocene
No geology is neutral, writes Kathryn Yusoff. Tracing the color line of the Anthropocene, A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None examines how the grammar of geology is foundational to establishing the extractive economies of subjective life and the earth under colonialism and slavery. Yusoff initiates a transdisciplinary conversation between black feminist theory, geography, and the earth sciences, addressing the politics of the Anthropocene within the context of race, materiality, deep time, and the afterlives of geology.
No geology is neutral, writes Kathryn Yusoff. Tracing the color line of the Anthropocene, A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None examines how the grammar of geology is foundational to establishing the extractive economies of subjective life and the earth under colonialism and slavery. Yusoff initiates a transdisciplinary conversation between black feminist theory, geography, and the earth sciences, addressing the politics of the Anthropocene within the context of race, materiality, deep time, and the afterlives of geology.
115 pages, Paperback
First published November 2, 2018
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About the author
Kathryn Yusoff
10 books18 followersKathryn Yusoff is Professor of Inhuman Geography at Queen Mary University of London.
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January 11, 2022Term is over, and I'm winding down my work in anticipation of the Christmas break. For three days in a row I get up early, open the PDF of Kathryn Yusoff's A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None, read it for a couple of hours, then go for a run on the increasingly icy paths of Leeds parks. This is a short and provocative book, one which casts the entire discourse surrounding the Anthropocene as a form of "White Geology" that violently forges and then violently excludes a racialised blackness that is also its unacknowledged foundation. Yusoff's argument can be just about reduced to this: 1) Liberals take the "Anthropocene" to name a geological period of history in which humans are irrevocably altering the earth. 2) There are numerous problems with this, not least that it universalises the species "humanity" as a homogenous cause of, for example, climate collapse, when in actual fact the causes of climate change are contained to the actions and agendas of only a very small number of humans. 3) But it's not enough to simply say that we need a more nuanced concept of the Anthropocene, one which understands the difference between penthouse-owning millionaires in New York and the dispossessed indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforest. 4) In fact, we need to understand the entire enterprise of the Anthropocene -- including both what it is and the grammar with which it is described -- is an anti-black "White Geology", one which creates a colour line between the black slaves that did the mining in the Gold Coast and the white families in Victorian London that boarded a train to holiday in the countryside.
I don't know anything about geology and its history, so I can't say much about that. But I do know about the many debates surrounding the Anthropocene as a concept, and as a keyword which – despite its many problems – helps us articulate the scope and scale of human impacts on the planet. What's interesting with this book is that, rather than renaming and reclaiming the Anthropocene as the Capitalocene (Jason W Moore), the Chthulthcene (Donna Haraway), or the Plantationocene (Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing), Yusoff offers a deliberately transformative and deconstructive vision: "the nonevent of a billion black anthropocenes". Thus against the reductive, universalising, homogenous "Anthropocene", Yusoff suggests not one but many anthropocenes. From this vantage point Yusoff builds one of the most systematic arguments thus far that the anthropocene, as concept and as reality, is built on an erasure of its racial origins. She writes that "geology is a mode of accumulation, on one hand, and of dispossession, on the other, depending on which side of the geologic color line you end up on". Whiteness organises "blackness as a stratum or seismic barrier to the costs of extraction" – from yesterday's coal faces, alluvial planes, and sugarcane fields, to today's geographic positioning of black communities as a buffers for blocking the impacts on petrochemical industries and hurricanes. By drawing on the work of historian Sadiyah Hartman, poets Aimé Césaire and Édouard Glissant, afro-pessimists Christina Sharpe and Fred Moten, and sci-fi writers like N. K. Jemisin (whose Broken Earth trilogy is astonishingly good), Yusoff makes illuminating links between critical race studies and the environmental humanities. But at the same time, by bringing together all of these voices, Yusoff risks collapsing important differences between these thinkers, including their own historically specific and geographically situated contexts. Thus blackness itself is, worryingly, characterised as monolithic. There's also the question of capital and its relationship with racialisation, which remains largely unaddressed throughout the book. But that's okay. This book is good to think with regardless of its limitations.
I don't know anything about geology and its history, so I can't say much about that. But I do know about the many debates surrounding the Anthropocene as a concept, and as a keyword which – despite its many problems – helps us articulate the scope and scale of human impacts on the planet. What's interesting with this book is that, rather than renaming and reclaiming the Anthropocene as the Capitalocene (Jason W Moore), the Chthulthcene (Donna Haraway), or the Plantationocene (Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing), Yusoff offers a deliberately transformative and deconstructive vision: "the nonevent of a billion black anthropocenes". Thus against the reductive, universalising, homogenous "Anthropocene", Yusoff suggests not one but many anthropocenes. From this vantage point Yusoff builds one of the most systematic arguments thus far that the anthropocene, as concept and as reality, is built on an erasure of its racial origins. She writes that "geology is a mode of accumulation, on one hand, and of dispossession, on the other, depending on which side of the geologic color line you end up on". Whiteness organises "blackness as a stratum or seismic barrier to the costs of extraction" – from yesterday's coal faces, alluvial planes, and sugarcane fields, to today's geographic positioning of black communities as a buffers for blocking the impacts on petrochemical industries and hurricanes. By drawing on the work of historian Sadiyah Hartman, poets Aimé Césaire and Édouard Glissant, afro-pessimists Christina Sharpe and Fred Moten, and sci-fi writers like N. K. Jemisin (whose Broken Earth trilogy is astonishingly good), Yusoff makes illuminating links between critical race studies and the environmental humanities. But at the same time, by bringing together all of these voices, Yusoff risks collapsing important differences between these thinkers, including their own historically specific and geographically situated contexts. Thus blackness itself is, worryingly, characterised as monolithic. There's also the question of capital and its relationship with racialisation, which remains largely unaddressed throughout the book. But that's okay. This book is good to think with regardless of its limitations.
August 2, 2020
This book was sooo interesting, but it makes me really sad when important books are written in a way that is really inaccessible to non-academic audiences!!
December 29, 2020
A mixed bag, but a rewarding read if you can handle it.
First thing is that this book is of a highly academic nature, and Yussoff does not try to hide it for a second. The theory jargon is laid on thick and fast, so unless you are comfortable with this I cannot seriously recommend this book to you. I read this as part of a reading group, which made it far more doable, but I can't say I would have managed to understand it all on my own, nor endure the style.
However, if you persevere, you will come across some very convincing and important post-colonial perspectives on the Anthropocene. Yussoff goes for the field of geology, a decision that remains cryptic for a long time in the book, until it becomes clear that she has chosen it for its power to classify matter, thus making it 'extractable'. This power is the same that lies in the classification of race and species, enabling domination and extraction of another kind. There are many moments of moving and horrifying historical example that Yussoff shares, and her method of involving female poets as citations is quite impressive.
Unfortunately this book has not been edited well, if at all, from what I can tell. The concluding chapter states things that should have been made very clear in the introduction, and there is a definite sense of the book being rushed. It reads more like a doctoral paper than a book. With a harder round of editing I imagine this could have been a very enjoyable and polished work.
Anyway, for all its toughness, this is an important book and worth getting into if you're ready for a bit of a struggle and don't mind the theory language.
First thing is that this book is of a highly academic nature, and Yussoff does not try to hide it for a second. The theory jargon is laid on thick and fast, so unless you are comfortable with this I cannot seriously recommend this book to you. I read this as part of a reading group, which made it far more doable, but I can't say I would have managed to understand it all on my own, nor endure the style.
However, if you persevere, you will come across some very convincing and important post-colonial perspectives on the Anthropocene. Yussoff goes for the field of geology, a decision that remains cryptic for a long time in the book, until it becomes clear that she has chosen it for its power to classify matter, thus making it 'extractable'. This power is the same that lies in the classification of race and species, enabling domination and extraction of another kind. There are many moments of moving and horrifying historical example that Yussoff shares, and her method of involving female poets as citations is quite impressive.
Unfortunately this book has not been edited well, if at all, from what I can tell. The concluding chapter states things that should have been made very clear in the introduction, and there is a definite sense of the book being rushed. It reads more like a doctoral paper than a book. With a harder round of editing I imagine this could have been a very enjoyable and polished work.
Anyway, for all its toughness, this is an important book and worth getting into if you're ready for a bit of a struggle and don't mind the theory language.
March 13, 2021
I tried so hard. I really wanted to love this book. The ideas are so important and need broader discussion. But ultimately the language was so opaque that I couldn't force myself to struggle through it anymore. It took me months to get to page 60, and it was a never-ending repeat of "I think I get it. I think I get it. I think I get it. And ... there it goes ... I don't get it."
I think, summing up the key ideas, Yusoff is arguing that the field of geology is inextricably linked to extractavism and the trans-atlantic slave trade it demanded, plus the enforced labour it still demands today, and therefore can't be easily separated from anti-black racism; that current conceptions of the Anthropocene pose a bland and fictitious universal Human as the cause of our ecological woes, thus erasing the violence against Black and Indigenous people it rests on, and providing cover for the actual perpetrators. But what exactly "a billion black anthropocenes" are, what role and purpose the concept serves in her theory, I still have no clear idea.
I hope Yusoff either expands on her ideas with a more accessible language, or someone takes up the mantle to popularize her, because I think these are important ideas worth discussing.
I think, summing up the key ideas, Yusoff is arguing that the field of geology is inextricably linked to extractavism and the trans-atlantic slave trade it demanded, plus the enforced labour it still demands today, and therefore can't be easily separated from anti-black racism; that current conceptions of the Anthropocene pose a bland and fictitious universal Human as the cause of our ecological woes, thus erasing the violence against Black and Indigenous people it rests on, and providing cover for the actual perpetrators. But what exactly "a billion black anthropocenes" are, what role and purpose the concept serves in her theory, I still have no clear idea.
I hope Yusoff either expands on her ideas with a more accessible language, or someone takes up the mantle to popularize her, because I think these are important ideas worth discussing.
March 21, 2021
most of the thinkers I know did not like this book--they found it repetitive. importantly, they are not historians.
historians are familiar with the historiographic review essay, comparable to the literature review with a temporal dimension. this book is kind of like a long historiography, and it usefully brings together some of the biggest and most useful names in contemporary Black Studies. this book does not make much of a theoretical contribution, but it lays the groundwork for Bedour Alaagra's The Interminable Catastrophe, which is by all accounts going to be discipline-redefining.
historians are familiar with the historiographic review essay, comparable to the literature review with a temporal dimension. this book is kind of like a long historiography, and it usefully brings together some of the biggest and most useful names in contemporary Black Studies. this book does not make much of a theoretical contribution, but it lays the groundwork for Bedour Alaagra's The Interminable Catastrophe, which is by all accounts going to be discipline-redefining.
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November 9, 2022Updated: ok second read I don’t feel the same way I did but still quite good!
honestly changed the trajectory of my academic research like this book is sO good
honestly changed the trajectory of my academic research like this book is sO good
June 1, 2021
Brilliant at parts, but the same ideas rephrased in varying modes of obscurity suggests there’s less going on here than Yusoff would like you to believe.
November 21, 2021
the geology book that singlehandedly freed bobby shmurda!!!!!!!!!!
September 17, 2022
Yusoff's volume, slim in length but a slog in syntax, has an important thesis, which I agree with. She interrogates the recent concern over humanity's degradation of planet Earth, 'our' overbearing influence, for which the name 'anthropocene' has been coined. Her beef is (thankfully) not over whether climate change is real or not. It's with the designation that 'we' (that is, all of humanity) are to blame, as opposed to a predominantly white global minority who, through colonialism and global capitalism, have deformed both the world and its peoples into the environmental catastrophe that now confronts us (yes, this time it is all of us). In other words, Yusoff's beef is with what discourse about the Anthropocene leave out, namely a history of colonialism, slavery, and ongoing racialised exploitation:
[At the centre of] the Anthropocene is anti-Blackness; it is racialised matter that delivers the Anthropocene as a geologic event into the world, through mining, plantations, railroads, labor, and energy. While Blackness is the energy and flesh of the Anthropocene, it is excluded from the wealth of its accumulation. Rather, Blackness must absorb the excess of that surplus as toxicity, pollution, and intensification of storms. Again and again.
Yusoff works essentially in the mode of post-structuralist critique, arguing that centuries of anti-Black violence are written out of a conception of the anthropocene even while they constitute its centre. Moreover, Yusoff argues that the logic that led to environmental degradation is complicit with the language of racism, the latter of which was used to justify colonialism and slavery. Both are predicated on a distinction between the human and the non-human, of objectifying life. Whether it be 'virgin' territory, forests, grown crops, or black Africans forced to endure the middle passage, these could all be relegated to the status of property: life subjugated to the status of a commodity to be bought, sold, and worked over by those who designated themselves both human and their owners. In the process these lives - Black, vegetal, indigenous, enslaved... - were wrecked.
This is an argument for which a great deal of historical support can be mustered. To take but one example: racist discourse over the centuries tied 'the natives' to the environments in which they were 'found', sometimes causing them to disappear entirely, such that European settlers could claim they found a depopulated land in which they were the first inhabitants. And one need only consider (as too many too seldom do) that the uncountable murder of non-European lives stains the four corners of the earth upon which capitalism and industrialism expanded to global proportions. The lives of the wretched of the earth were felled and continue to fall along with the environment of the earth.
And yet Yusoff's demonstration of this convergence is hit and miss. A particularly egregious example is her critique of a mid-19th-century geologist who harboured racist views. From his being both a geologist and racist, Yusoff motivates for geology being complicit in and providing the dehumanising language for racism. But just because a practicing geologist happened to have racist views is hardly evidence to link the field of geology with racism. I found little in Yusoff's quotations that provided a specifically geological bent in her geologist's ideology. It maps onto the typically teleological thinking of the time, which classed Africans behind Europeans on a racetrack of human development, and could therefore be found in a broad spectrum of educated Europeans of his class. It hardly started or found its main proponent in geology. Maybe I've been spoiled by all the Eric Hobsbawm I've been reading lately, but Yusoff's critique of historical sources falls short for me.
But my main frustration has to do with how little Yusoff does with her premise. She draws on figures - Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, Achille Mbembe, the recent school of Afro-Pessimist thought - who have laid out the argument for the fungibility of black life, its uneasy oscillation between the status of human and non-human, being and non-being. Yusoff relocates this argument in the context of environmental catastrophe. But she doesn't bring anything fundamentally new to it. How do environmentalist and Anthropocene contexts alter these arguments about the ways in which Black lives do and don't matter? Instead we have the arguments of Yusoff's sources in a new location, largely unaltered.
All in all, something of a missed opportunity.
[At the centre of] the Anthropocene is anti-Blackness; it is racialised matter that delivers the Anthropocene as a geologic event into the world, through mining, plantations, railroads, labor, and energy. While Blackness is the energy and flesh of the Anthropocene, it is excluded from the wealth of its accumulation. Rather, Blackness must absorb the excess of that surplus as toxicity, pollution, and intensification of storms. Again and again.
Yusoff works essentially in the mode of post-structuralist critique, arguing that centuries of anti-Black violence are written out of a conception of the anthropocene even while they constitute its centre. Moreover, Yusoff argues that the logic that led to environmental degradation is complicit with the language of racism, the latter of which was used to justify colonialism and slavery. Both are predicated on a distinction between the human and the non-human, of objectifying life. Whether it be 'virgin' territory, forests, grown crops, or black Africans forced to endure the middle passage, these could all be relegated to the status of property: life subjugated to the status of a commodity to be bought, sold, and worked over by those who designated themselves both human and their owners. In the process these lives - Black, vegetal, indigenous, enslaved... - were wrecked.
This is an argument for which a great deal of historical support can be mustered. To take but one example: racist discourse over the centuries tied 'the natives' to the environments in which they were 'found', sometimes causing them to disappear entirely, such that European settlers could claim they found a depopulated land in which they were the first inhabitants. And one need only consider (as too many too seldom do) that the uncountable murder of non-European lives stains the four corners of the earth upon which capitalism and industrialism expanded to global proportions. The lives of the wretched of the earth were felled and continue to fall along with the environment of the earth.
And yet Yusoff's demonstration of this convergence is hit and miss. A particularly egregious example is her critique of a mid-19th-century geologist who harboured racist views. From his being both a geologist and racist, Yusoff motivates for geology being complicit in and providing the dehumanising language for racism. But just because a practicing geologist happened to have racist views is hardly evidence to link the field of geology with racism. I found little in Yusoff's quotations that provided a specifically geological bent in her geologist's ideology. It maps onto the typically teleological thinking of the time, which classed Africans behind Europeans on a racetrack of human development, and could therefore be found in a broad spectrum of educated Europeans of his class. It hardly started or found its main proponent in geology. Maybe I've been spoiled by all the Eric Hobsbawm I've been reading lately, but Yusoff's critique of historical sources falls short for me.
But my main frustration has to do with how little Yusoff does with her premise. She draws on figures - Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, Achille Mbembe, the recent school of Afro-Pessimist thought - who have laid out the argument for the fungibility of black life, its uneasy oscillation between the status of human and non-human, being and non-being. Yusoff relocates this argument in the context of environmental catastrophe. But she doesn't bring anything fundamentally new to it. How do environmentalist and Anthropocene contexts alter these arguments about the ways in which Black lives do and don't matter? Instead we have the arguments of Yusoff's sources in a new location, largely unaltered.
All in all, something of a missed opportunity.
December 29, 2023
I really, really wanted to love this book but the problems kept growing and compounding to the point they are so huge that it is impossible to tackle them in any reasonable summation. But a couple overarching problems are;
1. The constant conflating of geology with all other "geos" (geography, geopolitics, geologic, etc.) and a billion other "non-geos" (capitalism for instance, which is barely mentioned but could be substituted in the dozens and dozens of times extraction was mentioned) made for slippery ground on which to base anything throughout the book. Geology, so named, was constantly attacked but it was rarely actually geology that the author was attacking or describing.
2. Epoch defining, in geology, has nothing to do with origins but definitions for which we later discover the origins. This was (sort of) acknowledged and then abandoned as soon as it didn't fit the claims. Arguments over origins of many of the epochal borders in geology are constant but, generally, this does not weaken the definition of the epoch. This may seem like a small point but it is too important not to ignore when epoch defining in this book was only seen as a definition of origins.
3. Attacking geology in pretty much every way it was attacked in this book is sort of like attacking architecture because prisons have been built. There could be coherent arguments for this very attack, but there isn't enough space in this tiny book (or even peaking out from under its bigger ideas) to make such an attack useful or coherent.
Again, just some basics that cover (very, very lightly) some large categories of the problem within the book, but there are many more. I was sympathetic to the books ideas and arguments throughout but it was just too muddy and nebulous. Would love to see the author tackle this more coherently in a much larger volume where the ideas have more room to clarify themselves.
1. The constant conflating of geology with all other "geos" (geography, geopolitics, geologic, etc.) and a billion other "non-geos" (capitalism for instance, which is barely mentioned but could be substituted in the dozens and dozens of times extraction was mentioned) made for slippery ground on which to base anything throughout the book. Geology, so named, was constantly attacked but it was rarely actually geology that the author was attacking or describing.
2. Epoch defining, in geology, has nothing to do with origins but definitions for which we later discover the origins. This was (sort of) acknowledged and then abandoned as soon as it didn't fit the claims. Arguments over origins of many of the epochal borders in geology are constant but, generally, this does not weaken the definition of the epoch. This may seem like a small point but it is too important not to ignore when epoch defining in this book was only seen as a definition of origins.
3. Attacking geology in pretty much every way it was attacked in this book is sort of like attacking architecture because prisons have been built. There could be coherent arguments for this very attack, but there isn't enough space in this tiny book (or even peaking out from under its bigger ideas) to make such an attack useful or coherent.
Again, just some basics that cover (very, very lightly) some large categories of the problem within the book, but there are many more. I was sympathetic to the books ideas and arguments throughout but it was just too muddy and nebulous. Would love to see the author tackle this more coherently in a much larger volume where the ideas have more room to clarify themselves.
October 7, 2020
"No geology is neutral."
Incredibly insightful, intense, and full of "new" knowledges; at least new ways of thinking about older ideas, thoughts, and theories. It is a profound and dense critique of the (white) Anthropocene. If you have no former knowledge of the Anthropocene, geology, environmentalism, coloniality and/or racialized assemblages, this might not be the best way to dive into the subject(s), but it wouldn't be the worst way either. My master thesis will explore relations of environmentalism, coloniality, and the Anthropocene in literature, so this book really hit the spot.
Also, can we agree that "professor of inhuman geography" is the coolest title ever?
Incredibly insightful, intense, and full of "new" knowledges; at least new ways of thinking about older ideas, thoughts, and theories. It is a profound and dense critique of the (white) Anthropocene. If you have no former knowledge of the Anthropocene, geology, environmentalism, coloniality and/or racialized assemblages, this might not be the best way to dive into the subject(s), but it wouldn't be the worst way either. My master thesis will explore relations of environmentalism, coloniality, and the Anthropocene in literature, so this book really hit the spot.
Also, can we agree that "professor of inhuman geography" is the coolest title ever?
May 1, 2021
This was hard work, it took me almost two months to read. But worth it, even though of course I don’t think it needed to be so difficult. It’s saying something crucial. I would love it if that crucial thing was stated clearly. I think it’s about extractive capital and the white violence even of the recognition of that in the term anthropocene, the connections between geology and racism, how black bodies have been treated as things to mine and extract value from. Much more than that, probably, but I did struggle.
Notice I’m not calling this “academic language”. I’m an academic, and many academics can write more clearly than this.
Notice I’m not calling this “academic language”. I’m an academic, and many academics can write more clearly than this.
June 16, 2021
this took way longer to read than i'd expected because of how small the book is, but the language was so unnecessarily opaque. a good resource for bibliography-digging though, and useful when you just need to cite something/someone for saying "ecocriticism has a race problem"
February 27, 2023
This is tricky because I fully agree with the main critique of the Anthropocene—that it’s universalizing and anti-Black—and of geology more generally. But the writing is so difficult to read that engaging with this text is nearly impossible.
April 9, 2021
pls explain
Read
April 3, 2023 In reading this, I entered a dialogue that I have absolutely no familiarity with. It’s probably one of the most academically heavy texts I’ve ever read, and I’m not entirely sure that such an elitist style is warranted. At the same time—and something that I frequently find myself asking of really pedantic writing—I’m not entirely sure how much of it is genuine. Is she attempting to be as unreadable as she is? It feels at odds with her message.
Primary amongst her points is the criticism of the Anthropocene–a criticism of the field of geology and the assumptions it relies on. The second she focuses on is the contradictory idea that “we have always lived catastrophe”; therefore, the quest to define the Anthropocene is at best futile and useless, at worst contributing to the downfall of the planet on a global scale. It reminds me, actually, of Mulhall (the fact that I have read Mulhall and therefore have the ability for me to bring Mulhall into this conversation makes me slightly queasy, but we roll with it for the sake of the philosophy of catastrophe). Yusoff criticizes the current working definitions of the Anthropocene’s “Golden Spike” as ignorant of the constant catastrophe endured by those excluded from the anthropocene. This runs parallel to Jemisin’s emphasis on the geological timeline of systems that inflict suffering, among many other parallels.
Coming out of a rhetoric class exclusively framed around dialogue—where we traced a really heady and self-important train of discussion—and then viewing Jemisin’s Broken Earth as a critical part of a larger philosophical and social conversation is so cool. Delegitimizing the genre for being silly and insignificant is steeped in intellectual elitism (and in that, racism and sexism and many other systems of oppression that devalue specific narratives) and seeing Jemisin’s Broken Earth as a valued contribution to critical discourse was incredibly cool to see.
This book also puts the Broken Earth trilogy into even starker relief, and reveals Jemisin as a literal, true genius. The specific world building of a planet defined by geology and geological power is sick as hell by itself—I read it and thought it was impressive just on a fantasy scale, when compared to other fantasy magic systems. When paired with Anthropocene, though, Jemisin’s magic system is more than just well-developed; it becomes down right revolutionary. There’s already a lot of tropes being broken, but perhaps most impressive is the idea that magic can (and maybe should) be a commentary on larger societal problems and systemic issues. I tend to overflow with words when it comes to the Broken Earth—too many feelings, too many hidden criticism of the my favorite genre and too many things I’m in awe of—but when read through the lens Yusoff wants us to see Jemisin’s work, I grow truly speechless. She did that, and I got to read it.
I wouldn’t strictly recommend reading this outside of the Broken Earth conversation. It’s not that it doesn’t have value outside of it—indeed, she mentions Jemisin only vaguely like twice, the book/essay is not actually in direct response—it’s just that I think it dumps you in the middle of a conversation you should listen to from the beginning. Do I have any idea who started this conversation? Not really. I think it’s more of a history book than a theory one, but so confused am I, I can’t even say that confidently. I am only a wannabe theory girlie, not an actual one, and I would never have read this were it not assigned for class. Reading it did make me even more thankful for the opportunity to study science fiction and fantasy in an academic, serious context and even more in awe of the magnificent Professor Donna V. Jones.
Primary amongst her points is the criticism of the Anthropocene–a criticism of the field of geology and the assumptions it relies on. The second she focuses on is the contradictory idea that “we have always lived catastrophe”; therefore, the quest to define the Anthropocene is at best futile and useless, at worst contributing to the downfall of the planet on a global scale. It reminds me, actually, of Mulhall (the fact that I have read Mulhall and therefore have the ability for me to bring Mulhall into this conversation makes me slightly queasy, but we roll with it for the sake of the philosophy of catastrophe). Yusoff criticizes the current working definitions of the Anthropocene’s “Golden Spike” as ignorant of the constant catastrophe endured by those excluded from the anthropocene. This runs parallel to Jemisin’s emphasis on the geological timeline of systems that inflict suffering, among many other parallels.
Coming out of a rhetoric class exclusively framed around dialogue—where we traced a really heady and self-important train of discussion—and then viewing Jemisin’s Broken Earth as a critical part of a larger philosophical and social conversation is so cool. Delegitimizing the genre for being silly and insignificant is steeped in intellectual elitism (and in that, racism and sexism and many other systems of oppression that devalue specific narratives) and seeing Jemisin’s Broken Earth as a valued contribution to critical discourse was incredibly cool to see.
This book also puts the Broken Earth trilogy into even starker relief, and reveals Jemisin as a literal, true genius. The specific world building of a planet defined by geology and geological power is sick as hell by itself—I read it and thought it was impressive just on a fantasy scale, when compared to other fantasy magic systems. When paired with Anthropocene, though, Jemisin’s magic system is more than just well-developed; it becomes down right revolutionary. There’s already a lot of tropes being broken, but perhaps most impressive is the idea that magic can (and maybe should) be a commentary on larger societal problems and systemic issues. I tend to overflow with words when it comes to the Broken Earth—too many feelings, too many hidden criticism of the my favorite genre and too many things I’m in awe of—but when read through the lens Yusoff wants us to see Jemisin’s work, I grow truly speechless. She did that, and I got to read it.
I wouldn’t strictly recommend reading this outside of the Broken Earth conversation. It’s not that it doesn’t have value outside of it—indeed, she mentions Jemisin only vaguely like twice, the book/essay is not actually in direct response—it’s just that I think it dumps you in the middle of a conversation you should listen to from the beginning. Do I have any idea who started this conversation? Not really. I think it’s more of a history book than a theory one, but so confused am I, I can’t even say that confidently. I am only a wannabe theory girlie, not an actual one, and I would never have read this were it not assigned for class. Reading it did make me even more thankful for the opportunity to study science fiction and fantasy in an academic, serious context and even more in awe of the magnificent Professor Donna V. Jones.
November 14, 2020
A dense but dazzlingly theorized anti-racist take on the Anthropocene debate, foregrounding the many ways in which geological historiographies align themselves with colonial frameworks and anti-Blackness.
May 6, 2025
Filed under: Books That Radicalized Me
July 12, 2021
Yusoff's heart is certainly in the right place, but this book leaves a lot to be desired. Partially, this book just isn't really saying anything new. There's already been lots of work done to critique the Anthropocene from a critical race angle (Dipesh Chakrabarty is the first name that comes to mind but there are many others). And then when the book does try to add something new, it either does so in an incredibly opaque and/or vague way, or fails to comment on the distinction between science and humanities.
On the lack of clarity, I finished the book and still feel uncertain as to what exactly "a billion Black anthropocenes" refers. My sense is that Yusoff is drawing a distinction between on one hand the search for the single "golden spike" that will demarcate the exact year the Anthropocene began and on the other hand the fact that the Anthropocene is not a single moment but instead built upon the oppression of a billion Black people. Except, even if that's what she means (not clear that it is, but seems most likely), 1) there's no reason why you can't have a golden spike and acknowledge that the Anthropocene relies on oppression 2) I'm not really sure where the number a billion is coming from 3) Not clear why "Black" when throughout the book she refers to Black and Brown people and seems mindful of at least indigenous oppression (she seems to flirt with Afro-pessimism, so she might not care about other oppression, but even by her own logic you'd think at least indigenous people would find their way into the title).
And then there's the lack of distinction between fields. You can, of course, attempt to redefine a field and argue that science should adopt different practices. But if you're going to do that you need to be pretty rigorous about how geology is currently conducted and I didn't really get a great sense of that. Ultimately then, I'm left wondering, why is this book about geology? Yusoff answers by asserting it has "everything" to do with geology, which is true, but does not consider that we can critique science without doing science. This book would benefit if Yusoff instead either offered concrete suggestions for how geologists conducted their research (like down to critiquing the picks and chisels, not just saying that Black people are exploited like the earth is) and/or reframing the book as an interpretation of geology through the lens of critical race (i.e., geologists have found the golden spike, but now we need to consider the human oppression that went into that and also think about how to not turn that data point into an origin narrative that centers whiteness).
I don't mean to sound overly harsh. It's definitely worthwhile to think critically about science and there's often not enough of that in a world where people who have never read past a headline on MSNBC.com put "believe science" bumper stickers on their cars. But execution matters and this book rests in an unfortunate place of not being particularly fresh to people in the field but also not being particularly accessible to people outside it.
On the lack of clarity, I finished the book and still feel uncertain as to what exactly "a billion Black anthropocenes" refers. My sense is that Yusoff is drawing a distinction between on one hand the search for the single "golden spike" that will demarcate the exact year the Anthropocene began and on the other hand the fact that the Anthropocene is not a single moment but instead built upon the oppression of a billion Black people. Except, even if that's what she means (not clear that it is, but seems most likely), 1) there's no reason why you can't have a golden spike and acknowledge that the Anthropocene relies on oppression 2) I'm not really sure where the number a billion is coming from 3) Not clear why "Black" when throughout the book she refers to Black and Brown people and seems mindful of at least indigenous oppression (she seems to flirt with Afro-pessimism, so she might not care about other oppression, but even by her own logic you'd think at least indigenous people would find their way into the title).
And then there's the lack of distinction between fields. You can, of course, attempt to redefine a field and argue that science should adopt different practices. But if you're going to do that you need to be pretty rigorous about how geology is currently conducted and I didn't really get a great sense of that. Ultimately then, I'm left wondering, why is this book about geology? Yusoff answers by asserting it has "everything" to do with geology, which is true, but does not consider that we can critique science without doing science. This book would benefit if Yusoff instead either offered concrete suggestions for how geologists conducted their research (like down to critiquing the picks and chisels, not just saying that Black people are exploited like the earth is) and/or reframing the book as an interpretation of geology through the lens of critical race (i.e., geologists have found the golden spike, but now we need to consider the human oppression that went into that and also think about how to not turn that data point into an origin narrative that centers whiteness).
I don't mean to sound overly harsh. It's definitely worthwhile to think critically about science and there's often not enough of that in a world where people who have never read past a headline on MSNBC.com put "believe science" bumper stickers on their cars. But execution matters and this book rests in an unfortunate place of not being particularly fresh to people in the field but also not being particularly accessible to people outside it.
November 4, 2020
At least four stars for the importance of the topic: how our current societies (western capitalist and liberal imperialism) is based on the exploitation of our planet and of non-white people, inhuman matter fit for extraction (of energy, minerals, etc.). Within this anti-Black racist geology that underpins recent history, universal history and future is fake: first the violent past of slavery, colonialism and dispossession has to be acknowledges in order to start anew with radically different relations between humans, races and the earth.
I am deeply impressed by the topic and the reflections by Yusoff. But it is so hard to read (and that's why it gets only 3 stars): I feel I understand what is meant, but somehow don't fully grasp the precise messages concealed in a difficult language...
Probably I should read more on this topic first and then re-read this book.
I am deeply impressed by the topic and the reflections by Yusoff. But it is so hard to read (and that's why it gets only 3 stars): I feel I understand what is meant, but somehow don't fully grasp the precise messages concealed in a difficult language...
Probably I should read more on this topic first and then re-read this book.
February 15, 2023
I need to really reread this again, but essentially talks about "colonial geology" it's more of a material perspective on the geotrauma and dispossession black peoples have faced - it's on par with elaine scarry's the body in pain where you're trying to read with the author in their use of metaphor. Lots of new things I learned and great for any essay writing or thinking on colonialism.
May 19, 2020
Definitely brilliant, but reads a bit like a manifesto, which is the point; however, I craved a more rigorous engagement with the discipline of geology. Her critiques are undoubtedly valid, but she maps them onto only one named geologist.
February 2, 2021
Unreadable. 5 stars for the title, 5 stars for what I gather (based on the reviews) the argument is, negative stars for editing and prose. I spent 10 years in academia, and books like this are why I left.
August 13, 2021
While I don’t disagree, why am I always hearing it from cis white women? And what would be a more appropriate and culturally sensitive label for the era in which climate change was unarguably the fault of humans?
March 4, 2020
heavy on citations low on analysis
October 16, 2024
Some incredible language and analysis but also so dense and verbose to the point that it becomes difficult to actually grasp the text - stylistically reminds me of Capital somewhat
November 8, 2021
“The birth of a geologic subject in the Anthropocene made without an examination of this history is a deadly erasure, rebirth without responsibility.”
I really loved this experimental intervention into mainstream ideas about the world as it is, and how it came to be. Kathryn Yusoff’s work is a bold critique of [white] geology and [white] theories of the Anthropocene, in particular, the process of erasing histories of racism and destruction, and the depoliticising of its actors.
Though the text can be heavily academic and repetitive in its written style – and challenging to read in some instances – it also contains some beautiful reflective passages which I found really moving. This short book has developed my thinking around the climate crisis and made me think twice about how the term ‘Anthropocene’ is used around me. There’s this term ‘colonial universalism’ which has stuck with me. I also found myself highlighting all the passages on mining and extraction which feel especially pertinent in the current moment: mining as the problem, mining as the suggested solution.
Although I don’t think Yusoff is Black (and positionality is important for a title like this), she draws heavily from Black Studies and leading thinkers such as Saidiya Hartman, Sylvia Wynter, Christina Sharpe, Dionne Brand, Tina Campt, James Baldwin and others.
To sum up what Yusoff is encouraging us to think about, it’s this:
“The Anthropocene cannot dust itself clean from the inventory of which it was made: from the cut hands that bled the rubber, the slave children sold by weight of flesh, the sharp blades of sugar, all the lingering dislocation from geography, dusting through diasporic generations.”
I really loved this experimental intervention into mainstream ideas about the world as it is, and how it came to be. Kathryn Yusoff’s work is a bold critique of [white] geology and [white] theories of the Anthropocene, in particular, the process of erasing histories of racism and destruction, and the depoliticising of its actors.
Though the text can be heavily academic and repetitive in its written style – and challenging to read in some instances – it also contains some beautiful reflective passages which I found really moving. This short book has developed my thinking around the climate crisis and made me think twice about how the term ‘Anthropocene’ is used around me. There’s this term ‘colonial universalism’ which has stuck with me. I also found myself highlighting all the passages on mining and extraction which feel especially pertinent in the current moment: mining as the problem, mining as the suggested solution.
Although I don’t think Yusoff is Black (and positionality is important for a title like this), she draws heavily from Black Studies and leading thinkers such as Saidiya Hartman, Sylvia Wynter, Christina Sharpe, Dionne Brand, Tina Campt, James Baldwin and others.
To sum up what Yusoff is encouraging us to think about, it’s this:
“The Anthropocene cannot dust itself clean from the inventory of which it was made: from the cut hands that bled the rubber, the slave children sold by weight of flesh, the sharp blades of sugar, all the lingering dislocation from geography, dusting through diasporic generations.”
Read
February 14, 2023Yusoff is not sure if she wants to talk about just black people or people of color in general, which makes her invocation of afropessimism kinda false and unconvincing. It’s like she has not really read Sexton at all. I’m not sure how much I care about a white woman making a weak intervention in the field of Black Studies. Her use of ‘black and brown’ comes off as scatterbrained; why is it not called “A billion black and brown anthropocenes”? Tbh, it’s like the academic equivalent of naming all of your black friends. There is probably more knowledge in Sylvia Wynter’s pinky than a paragraph in this book. Nevertheless, blackness and geology is a fascinating subject, and sometimes Yusoff pulls it off, so I understand why this book was ‘hot.’ Also, it could be a refreshing turn from new materialist philosophy, which tends to re-romanticize nonhuman life to the detriment of ignoring various Indigenous philosophies on nonhuman agency.
So, I find some parts of this enjoyable, but I am not sold. How sincere is someone attacking “White Geology” as if there is not a tradition of White-authored Black Studies? Does the extractive relationship to blackness not also exist in psychic life and intellectual production? Just wondering.
So, I find some parts of this enjoyable, but I am not sold. How sincere is someone attacking “White Geology” as if there is not a tradition of White-authored Black Studies? Does the extractive relationship to blackness not also exist in psychic life and intellectual production? Just wondering.
December 20, 2025
finally finished after over a year! I first started this as a companion to The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin (which is also quoted in the first page of the first chapter), and I am glad I did, though I think I only understood about 30-40%. It's written in a very reticulate ? and densely theoretical style.
I think I have a pretty good grasp of the vibes of white geographers who discuss the Anthropocene (I think my college had a first-year seminar on it in 2016) as some universal collective responsibility of modern humanity, which is what Yusoff is trying to tackle.
I am studing evolutionary biology and biogeography right now, and there is not nearly enough awareness among us about the colonial origins of natural history and geology. At this point one must expect that of the foundational scholars of these fields, but I learned for the first time how even though "geology" as we register it today is inextricable from how the Transatlantic slave trade positioned Black people as inhuman alongside the flow of natural resources that were extracted by colonial powers, "geology" is presented as racially neutral by those in power today and this power structure is still very much perpetuated (super watered down version). it's not a history book though.
this book also introduced to me to several other books I'd like to read next.
I would like to reread it from the top sometime soon after I read my "Theory for Beginners" book lol. as I said I only understood a fraction of it!
I think I have a pretty good grasp of the vibes of white geographers who discuss the Anthropocene (I think my college had a first-year seminar on it in 2016) as some universal collective responsibility of modern humanity, which is what Yusoff is trying to tackle.
I am studing evolutionary biology and biogeography right now, and there is not nearly enough awareness among us about the colonial origins of natural history and geology. At this point one must expect that of the foundational scholars of these fields, but I learned for the first time how even though "geology" as we register it today is inextricable from how the Transatlantic slave trade positioned Black people as inhuman alongside the flow of natural resources that were extracted by colonial powers, "geology" is presented as racially neutral by those in power today and this power structure is still very much perpetuated (super watered down version). it's not a history book though.
this book also introduced to me to several other books I'd like to read next.
I would like to reread it from the top sometime soon after I read my "Theory for Beginners" book lol. as I said I only understood a fraction of it!
January 28, 2023
This is a book I will definitely be revisiting, not only because the dense theoretical approach will take some time to unpack, but also because Yusoff's ideas deserve to be given time to percolate and sink in. "A Billion Black Anthropocenes" is the piece that is missing from a lot of the dominant discussions of the Anthropocene and I hope that it becomes a required course reading going forward.
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