Decolonizing the Cosmopolitan Geospatial Imaginary of the Anthropocene: Beyond Collapsed and Exclusionary Politics of Climate Change

Abstract

This paper extends Tariq Jazeel’s argument on cosmopolitanism to the Anthropocene. Jazeel argues that cosmopolitanism should be thought of geospatially, as a geographic analysis reveals that cosmopolitanism cannot escape its own historically Western spatial imaginary, ultimately collapsing difference and universalizing humanity (77). In reaction against suggestions that cosmopolitanism is a more ethical and socially responsible approach to changing environments, I maintain instead that the Anthropocene already operates within a cosmopolitan geospatial imaginary, which not only collapses blame and responsibility in the face of global environmental crises but also silences and erases the historical contexts of exploitation and extraction that follow within north-south lines of coloniality. Therefore, a decolonization of the cosmopolitan geospatial imaginary of the Anthropocene requires, in order to situate continued coloniality in environmental geopolitics and international relations, looking at the frameworks of both the nation-state and cosmopolitanism. The sections follow a critique of this proposed dialectic working within systems of exclusionary politics of the nation-state and the collapsing politics of cosmopolitanism.