125. NAMING AND (NON)KNOWING THINGS IN THE ANTHROPOCENE
Julianna Colonna Valevski Cardial, University of Pau; Sébastien Chailleux, Science Po Bordeaux;
Different authors in different domains demonstrated that naming things is a product of society and that it impacts and produces society, creating what exists and what does not (J. L. Austin, J. Searle, D. Smith, D. Haraway, J. Butler, R. Wall Kimmerer). Further, they argued that the knowledge we have (or do not have) about the world changes depending on the names we give to things.
Drawing on this idea, this panel proposes a reflection on naming things in the context of the Anthropocene. We are especially interested in the production of knowledge and ignorance (Gross & McGoey, 2015, 2022) about the contemporary stakes related to the ecological crisis: its cumulative causes; its impacts unequally distributed among territories and people; and its controversial solutions. To develop this outline, two main axes of reasoning are proposed:
Dynamics of naming: How, when, and who names things? Are names changing in the advent of the Anthropocene? Are they changing to be perceived as climate and environmentally friendly?
Impacts of naming: What are the impacts of the names on the way we (do not) know things? How does naming impact the production of knowledge and ignorance? Do these changes allow a re-problematization of the 'thing'? Do they call for new, or different knowledge?
This panel aims to draw the Ignorance Studies' attention to how names impact our (non)knowledge about things. Additionally, we convene scholars using other literature to take a deeper look into how naming things is affecting and being affected by the Anthropocene.
Keywords: Forms and Practices of Expertise, Energy and Extraction, Environmental/Multispecies Studies, Ignorance Studies; Naming; Ecological Crisis; Anthropocene
