CLIMATE CHAOS, ANARCHIST ACTIVISM AND THE ANTHROPOCENE

Abstract

This thesis is based on roughly three months of fieldwork from February to mid-May 2019 in the Rheinische Revier (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany), with a special focus on the resistance in the Hambacher forest. What emerges is an academic and personal investigation into themes that flow out of the urgent question: How to live in the Anthropocene? The thesis focuses on interrelated themes that flow out of concerns for the future of Mother Earth as it is related to human s survival on this planet. These are, the certain character of anarchist resistance in the Hambi ; a mode of life that is less alienated and thus is reconfiguring both human-human relations and human-more-than-human relations; and the possibilities that both of these prefigurative ways of life have to offer to the common reader when one acknowledges the stakes of this present moment in history. The thesis aims to let the reader consider their individual responsibility and agency in changing the present and future realities that decide a livable future for all species on the planet. It furthermore emphasizes that the solutions are not in a capitalistic mode of life, but rather in communal and horizontal living arrangements that have empowering abilities for those participating, as one relearns aspects of mutual aid and solidarity that have been a part of human communities throughout human history.