Plantationocene

English

Etymology

Coined by American science and technology studies scholar Donna Haraway and others in 2014, from plantation +‎ -cene.

Proper noun

Plantationocene

1. (uncommon) The current geological epoch, understood as having been created by the effects of large-scale monocropping.
   • 2015, Donna Haraway, “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin”, in Environmental Humanities‎^[2], volume 6, page 159:

     People joined the bumptious fray early and dynamically, even before they/we were critters who were later named Homo sapiens. But I think the issues about naming relevant to the Anthropocene, Plantationocene, or Capitalocene have to do with scale, rate/speed, synchronicity, and complexity.

   • 2020, Noboru Ishikawa, “Into a New Epoch: Capitalist Nature in the Plantationocene”, in Noboru Ishikawa, Ryoji Soda, editors, Anthropogenic Tropical Forests: Human—Nature Interfaces on the Plantation Frontier‎^[3], Springer, page 590:

     While the Anthropocene is defined in connection with the fossil fuel era, the Plantationocene is an epoch characterised by the emergence of a large-scale, monocropping production system across the surface of the Earth.

   • 2021, Wendy Wolford, “The Plantationocene: A Lusotropical Contribution to the Theory”, in Annals of the American Association of Geographers, volume 111, number 6, →DOI, page 1624:

     In this article, I argue that in addition to environmental humanities and Black geographies or southern studies, three fields—agrarian studies, critical development studies, and political ecology—help to provide us with a deeper understanding of the Plantationocene.

Usage notes

Used as an alternative to "Anthropocene".