Be Care(full)!: The Anthropocene

The chapter starts with a conceptual contextualization of the Anthropocene as perceived and discussed by significant Latin American social scientists. It then introduces the concept of necropolitics as a perspective to describe destructive dynamics in the region. In particular, the chapter juxtaposes modern-technocratic and Andean cosmovisions and their respective understanding of and relation to nature. As a counterpoint to necropolitical modern-capitalist understandings of nature, the last final part of the chapter shows how concepts are applied in contexts of regional social resistance and struggle, those who show how life is approached in different ways sharing a holistic conception. The politics of care (for life) are a core element, in contrast to utilitarian use-value. The author interprets diverse ecological protests in Latin America as expressions of an ecoterritorial turn based on the care for life and argues for the possibility of new fusions and articulations of modern and indigenous elements to cope with the multiple crisis of the Anthropocene.