Thirteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

In my analysis I observe ‘Anthropocene’s’ potentially recurring overlap with another phenomenon: ‘the Virocene’. The Anthropocene is posited as a geological age or period commencing with the Industrial Revolution, during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. Contrariwise with this historically incremental, if at times discontinuous or non-linear imaginary, the Virocene involves the episodic governing of human fortunes, sidelining again environmental concerns. Rather than thinking of the ‘Virocene’ as a self-contained period, we should consider it as an unpredictable rhizomatic phenomenon. Exposing the limitations of technology and science, the global onset of COVID-19 as a catastrophic évènement, suggested that Virocenic discharges enmesh and corrupt various autonomous imaginaries of mobility (including travel, social connectivity and global political solidarity). I focus on three distinctive Virocenic characteristics to reconsider theories of mobility and globalisation (of risk): (a) we must think in terms of ‘events’ or ‘episodes’ of civilizational development or decline, not ‘ages’ (la longue durée) (b) learn to track the ends of Virocene’s rhizomes, as these enable the uncontrolled growth of risks across and within borders, and (c) focus on cultures of control, rather than surveillance, to manage human responses to such biomedical phenomena in democratic ways.