Staying Proximate

The introductory chapter ‘Staying proximate’ welcomes the reader to stay with more-than-human relations in present times of ecological crisis, known as the age of the Anthropocene. The chapter joins feminist, postcolonial, and Indigenous environmental scholars’ call for more nuanced alternatives to the Anthropocenic imaginary, ones that attend to the multiplicity, difference, and uneven distribution of more-than-human responsibilities, vulnerabilities, and sufferings in the world. We seek alternatives to the distancing, generalising, and even apocalyptic imaginaries of the Anthropocene by engaging with mundane beings, relations, and places in the north. By gathering around uncomfortable concerns, we develop modes of proximity as affirmative entry points underlining the commitment to stay with the trouble in caring, sensitive, and thoughtful ways. We suggest openness, affinity, engagement, irritation, middleness, and scopic modes of attuning to and engaging with more-than-human worlds. It is these modes of attuning to our proximate relations that provide a radical standpoint of proximity that intensifies, enriches, and complicates our research inquiries in such times of all-encompassing ecological turmoil.