The International Political Economy (IPE) section of the International Studies Association grants a couple of awards every year. One of them is the IPE Outstanding Activist Scholar Award. The panel honouring me was supposed to take place a year ago in Hawaii, but the conference was cancelled in the last minute. This year’s conference was set for Las Vegas, but travelling remains impossible. The panel was finally held yesterday (6.4.2021) remotely and included Hasmet Uluorta and Chris Chase-Dunn as chairs and Jim Mittelman, Milja Kurki, and Mustapha Kamal Pasha as discussants. Following some reflections on the occasion and expressions of appreciation and gratitude, here is the substance of my talk.

This is my response to Paul Raskin’s beautifully written essay Interrogating the Anthropocene: Truth and Fallacy. It seems that human activity has pushed Earth into a hostile new geological epoch, which scientists have christened “the Anthropocene.” This jolt to the planet also jolts the culture, sparking reconsideration of who we are, where we are going, and how we must act. The question Paul poses is this: “If we care about building a decent future, how should we think about the Anthropocene?”. How is “Anthropocene” related to Capitalocene and related alternative interpretations? This time I am on the different side than Richard Falk and some other people I greatly admire, arguing that “anthropocene” is a compelling narrative.

This short, partly biographical text was written for the February 2021 Newsletter of the IBHA (International Big History Association). IBHA publishes monthly something on how Big History is practiced around the globe, and this is my contribution.

As Brexit and the popularity of anti-establishment movements demonstrate, trust in the EU and its institutions – and in neoliberal globalization more generally – has declined. Increasing inequalities between social classes and regions, and underlying political economy processes such as deindustrialization, have generated a rise of anti-elite populism across Europe and the world. The wider context includes slowdown of growth and related economic crises, both having deep roots in the financialization process. [This blog was first posted at Brave New Europe on 22 November 2020.]