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This chapter explores the narrative of the ‘Good Anthropocene’ as one way of depicting the current state of the Earth and how humanity should deal with the social-ecological issues at stake. This narrative is based on an ideal of control and claims that humanity should intensify its attempts to engineer planet Earth under the guidance of engineers and scientists. The Good Anthropocene thus reactivates a long genealogy of what Foucault described as pastoral power, with the figure of a positive authority leading humans toward ecoresponsible behavior. But should scientists really be shepherds? Analysis of this narrative leads us to discuss alternatives to this ecomodernist and elitist approach, and how it allows us to question how students’ critical thinking and agency can be developed in the Anthropocene. We then present a perspectivist framework that can help us to reconsider the challenges of sustainability in a way that is more compatible with a democratic approach that takes account of different forms of knowledge and addresses epistemic injustices. Through a brief case study of a lecture on narratives of the Anthropocene, we suggest how this framework can be used to question the required teacher support that would be needed to help them build on students’ empathy and understanding of power relations.

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Training Engineers for Sustainability, but Which One? A Discussion of Critical Alternatives to the “Good Anthropocene”

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Hugo Paris,
  • Nicolas Freud,
  • Caroline Ladage

摘要

This chapter explores the narrative of the ‘Good Anthropocene’ as one way of depicting the current state of the Earth and how humanity should deal with the social-ecological issues at stake. This narrative is based on an ideal of control and claims that humanity should intensify its attempts to engineer planet Earth under the guidance of engineers and scientists. The Good Anthropocene thus reactivates a long genealogy of what Foucault described as pastoral power, with the figure of a positive authority leading humans toward ecoresponsible behavior. But should scientists really be shepherds? Analysis of this narrative leads us to discuss alternatives to this ecomodernist and elitist approach, and how it allows us to question how students’ critical thinking and agency can be developed in the Anthropocene. We then present a perspectivist framework that can help us to reconsider the challenges of sustainability in a way that is more compatible with a democratic approach that takes account of different forms of knowledge and addresses epistemic injustices. Through a brief case study of a lecture on narratives of the Anthropocene, we suggest how this framework can be used to question the required teacher support that would be needed to help them build on students’ empathy and understanding of power relations.