Developing Earthly Attachments in the Anthropocene

"This book is a penetrating attempt to understand the ontological transformations through which meaning comes to matter and mattering comes to mean. Through telling the story of how the Earth and the Humans are speaking to each other, through self-referential mappings Iceland and the Netherlands Edward manages to complete an excursion into the taboo-laden lands of understanding, a visit to the void beyond the limits of language."

- Gunnar Olsson, Professor Emeritus, Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University, Sweden

"The Age of Humans, the Anthropocene, not only involves escalating human refashioning of Earth, conflating in the process categories for long seen as one of the cornerstones of Western thought, the notions of nature and society. It also implies strong human attachments to both place and "deep" time, to the material world, the planet "itself", and their histories. Huijbens skilfully addresses these vital attachments, outlining the framing of geosocial bonds in current social and environmental theory. Quite appropriately, the theoretical discussion is complimented by meaningful cases studies and personal reflexion. Earthly attachments, as the author shows, are not only facts of life in the current Anthropocene with all its threats to life as we know it, they need to be carefully studied, developed, and nurtured. Well written and well thought, this book has much to offer for all those who are interested in the state and future of natural history, environmental humanities, and planetary science."

- Gísli Pálsson, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, University of Iceland