Ecopoetic encounters: unsettling anthropocentric assumptions via constraint-based anthologethnography

Abstract

The multiform ecological crises of the Anthropocene raise a need to overcome western ideologies of human exceptionalism and anthropocentrism, and to revive multispecies connectivities towards more viable ways of living and learning from beyond-human kin. This article reports on a creative writing research experiment wherein eighteen poets spread across the UK, HKSAR, Korea, and Australia sought to discover and shift our own unwittingly internalised limitations of anthropocentrism via constraint-based ecopoetry and anthologethnography (cultural inquiry via anthologising) Towards this aim, we begin with a discussion of the ecological and ideological problems at hand. We then consider ecopoetry, constraint-based poetry, and anthologethnography. Our discussion of findings relays three key themes: the persistence of anthropocentric thinking despite our attempts to overcome it; the insights gained despite these limitations; and the new problems and questions that arose via our explorations. Ultimately, we note that the specific constraints we used were problematic, but could be revised for future inquiries. We argue for the value in further exploring potentials of constraint-based writing in group situations for practices of inquiry in research and pedagogy.