Acceso usuarios
Susana Ramírez García, Olga Mancha Cáceres
El Antropoceno constituye un régimen de sentido que busca universalizar las causas y las consecuencias de una crisis civilizatoria provocada por modelos patriarcales, coloniales, productivistas y extractivistas. Su impacto, sin embargo, es radicalmente desigual: afecta más intensamente a territorios históricamente subalternizados y reproduce las lógicas que lo originaron. Frente al relato dominante, proponemos el concepto de Prosopoceno como categoría analítica inclusiva y horizonte político-ético que identifica territorios donde emergen otras formas de habitar y relacionarse con el mundo, sustentadas en vínculos de reciprocidad, cuidados, cooperación y saberes situados. Son territorios que experimentan dinámicas socioambientales y de recuperación y/o cambio cultural que demuestran que sistemas de vida otros pueden ofrecer futuro al sistema Tierra.
Para explorar el Prosopoceno, planteamos, en primer lugar, una propuesta metodológica orientada al análisis situado de sus territorios, iniciada con un estudio exploratorio de fuentes para identificar respuestas comunitarias y ecofeministas a las consecuencias del Antropoceno, así como de territorios que han preservado otras esencias con estas mimbres, especialmente en contextos marcados por las migraciones climáticas. Territorios campesinos afectados por el despojo, mujeres y comunidades indígenas o subalternas, organizadas en redes socioterritoriales, despliegan estrategias de resiliencia basadas en saberes ecológicos tradicionales. Estas prácticas desafían el paradigma de las soluciones tecnocráticas del Antropoceno y, al mismo tiempo, se ven condicionadas por las dinámicas de las relaciones internacionales.
La lectura crítica de estos sistemas territoriales, presentados como estudios de caso, pretende ser el inicio de una cartografía co-creada del Prosopoceno concebida como dispositivo relacional. Esta cartografía recoge “semillas” del Prosopoceno, gérmenes que podrían expandir propuestas que colocan la vida en el centro y buscan regenerar las prácticas y revertir los impactos del Antropoceno. Desde un enfoque ecofeminista decolonial y que revaloriza el conocimiento tradicional, este trabajo cuestiona los marcos epistemológicos de las relaciones internacionales y sirve de base para propuestas de acuerdos que reconozcan las interdependencias y las ecodependencias, los límites biofísicos y las sabidurías no hegemónicas.
The debate on the Anthropocene has become a central issue in the social sciences and, increasingly, in the field of international relations. This concept, originally formulated within the Earth sciences, has become established as a global signifier to describe the contemporary socio-ecological crisis. However, its apparent universality hides profound asymmetries: not all regions or populations experience the consequences of planetary disruption in the same way, nor do they contribute to it to the same degree. In many cases, the most severe impacts fall on historically colonized territories, peasant communities, and indigenous peoples, and particularly on women, who bear much of the burden of care work and food production in local systems.Our article seeks to contribute to this debate from a dual perspective. On the one hand, we propose an ecofeminist and decolonial reading of the Anthropocene that highlights and values the practices, knowledge, and resistance that emerge on the margins of the global system. To this end, we introduce the concept of the Prosopocene, understood as an analytical horizon and a dialogical and participatory proposal that aims to map the spaces where relationships of care, reciprocity, and life-supporting prac-tices are cultivated in the face of socioecological devastation. The term emphasizes the multiplicity of subjects, places, and practices that, far from being residual or peripheral, constitute genuine seeds of alternatives to the contemporary crisis.The main objective of the article is, therefore, to propose a theoretical-analytical and methodological framework that allows us to rethink the global socioecological crisis from a post-Anthropocene paradigm.The category of the Anthropocene has been widely questioned for its abstract and homogenizing nature. Against the idea of a single, undifferentiated humanity responsible for planetary collapse, several alter-native formulations have attempted to nuance and complicate this narrative. Thus, Capitalocene em-phasizes the central role of capitalism in socio-ecological destruction; Plantationocene draws attention to the extractivist and colonial logic of monocultures; Chthulucene proposes multispecies alliances to regenerate life; while other critical perspectives highlight the risks of technocratic solutions that repro-duce the same extractivist logics that created the crisis. Our proposal falls within this field of conceptual dispute. The Prosopocene does not deny the material reality of global ecological alterations but rather emphasizes the need to recognize and map social, cultural, and political practices aimed at sustaining life and cultivating the commons. In contrast to the universalism of the Anthropocene, the Prosopocene brings multiplicity to the fore: there are places, territories, and communities where alternative seeds are emerging, and these are increasingly recognized both by academic research and by the agents who conceive and live them. Thus, the Prosopocene not only enriches critical vocabulary, but also introduc-es a conceptual framework that brings the relational, the situated, and the diverse to the fore. This framework draws on two major critical traditions. From ecofeminism, it emphasizes the centrality of care, interdependence, and the sustainability of life as organizing principles that challenge patriarchy, competitiveness, and productivism. From a decolonial perspective, it emphasizes the importance of rec-ognizing epistemic plurality and valuing traditional ecological knowledge not as "remnants of the past" but as living forms of knowledge that provide crucial insights for just socioecological transitions. Both perspectives converge in questioning the dominant paradigm and proposing alternative horizons where people and other living beings occupy the center.Methodologically, the article combines bibliographic analysis with an exploration of digital sources. We begin with a review of multi- and interdisciplinary literature (based on social anthropology, geography, international relations, sociology, political ecology, and ecological humanities) to situate the critique of Anthropocene universalism. This review allows us to trace the universe of academic production and fo-cus on the limits of theoretical frameworks, contrasting them with proposals from critical currents and with the empirical foundations that underpin them all. We then develop a comparative matrix of situated experiences, which we call "Seeds of the Prosopocene." This matrix is organized around criteria such as: The prominence of the ecofeminist and community approach; The use of traditional knowledge to deal with the effects of climate change; The incorporation of principles of material and energy circularity; Interactions with international actors (cooperation, trade, resource geopolitics); The construction of biophysical and social resilience in the face of the impacts of the Anthropocene. This methodological propos-al follows a logic of situated analysis, which recognizes the limitations of Western academic frameworks while opening to the integration of other epistemologies, practices, and narratives. The approach does not aim to establish another universal framework, but rather to highlight the plurality of experiences already underway, which offer valuable lessons for addressing the socio-ecological crisis.The article is organized into five main sections: Critical introduction to the Anthropocene. This section presents the debates surrounding the Anthropocene and argues for the need to expand analytical frame-works beyond the homogenizing notion of "humanity" as a single geological agent; 1. Methodology; 2. Anthropocene, international relations, climate migration, and Prosopocene. This section brings togeth-er the categories that give it its name and develops our conceptual proposal for the Prosopocene; 3. Epistemologies for a relational geopolitics: delimitation of criteria for the selection and classification of Prosopocene seeds. Here we operationalize our conceptual proposal, focused on the recognition of prac-tices and knowledge that cultivate the commons and sustain life, in tension with the dominant anthro-pocentric logic and its narratives that obscure inequalities; 4. Comparative matrix of Prosopocene cases and seeds. Based on the literature review and online resources, this section constructs a matrix that identifies the previously defined criteria for resilience and resistance in a selection of cases. The matrix allows us to visualize how seeds of just socio-ecological transitions emerge in diverse contexts, ranging from women's networks and multiscale peasant communities in contexts affected by the consequences of the Anthropocene, where dynamics such as climate migration, territorial dispossession, and the loss of essential goods for life are experienced; 5. Discussion. This section discusses the theoretical and po-litical implications of our approach and proposes moving toward international agreements that prioritize socio-ecological justice and the sustainability of life. Emphasis is placed on how the Prosopocene can provide tools for rethinking international cooperation, territorial and environmental governance, and the management of the consequences of climate change. It recaps the advisability of launching a global par-ticipatory initiative to map the seeds of the Prosopocene as a tool for raising awareness and promoting good practices; Conclusion. The final section summarizes the main findings of the article and argues for the need to shift the horizon of "anthropological solutions" (technocratic and universalist responses) toward collective and situated alternatives that can redesign the frameworks of international relations.The article concludes that the Anthropocene, understood as a universal category, is insufficient to cap-ture the complexity of the socio-ecological crisis. In contrast, we propose the Prosopocene as an analyt-ical and ethical tool that allows us to recognize the diversity of practices of resistance and care that are emerging in different territories. These practices, from agroecology to women's networks in vulnerable contexts, are not mere survival strategies, but genuine proposals for imagining another future, capable of guiding just socioecological transitions. The contribution to the field of international relations lies in broadening the post anthropocentric debate by incorporating ecofeminist and decolonial epistemologies that challenge the way we understand territories and their people, the ways we relate to others (under-stood broadly as all beings in the biosphere), especially in contexts located in the Global South. In doing so, the article opens up paths towards the construction of international agreements that go beyond the technocratic management of the crisis, which does not change the very logic that produced it, but rather promotes collective eco-solutions based on traditional knowledge, care practices, and respect for the biophysical limits of the planet.
