Toni Ruuska

Owing to the claimed loss of meaning in modern societies, this article investigates how the experience of the sacred is disclosed in technological practices. The experience of the sacred is studied through four framings that approach the sacred as (i) extreme im/purity or sublimity, (ii) a religious framework, (iii) a sense of connection, and (iv) a cognitive experience related to skills. Sacred experiences may emerge in all technological practices, but their meaning is implied to be of a particularly fleeting kind in highly technological practicesmeasured by their increase in matter-energy throughputand prone to cause the experience of alienation. Sacred experience in less technological practices is consequently proposed to hold the potential to offer a more sustained experience of meaning. However, the proper kinds of skills are essential to reach experiences of the sacred that may serve to restore life and its purpose.

In this autoethnographic depiction, I tell a story of change and renewal. In the narrative, I present a story of personal choices and epiphanies that have changed the course of my life. At the turning point, I portray the process of learning new skills regarding food self-provisioning. I come from a privileged, but deskilled, middle-class suburban background, and the past four years has been a diverse journey of insecurity, alienation, and fatigue, but also of learning, empowerment, and self-realization. From a person with limited skills, to an at least somewhat skilled food neo-self-provisioner, I have partaken in a process of becoming, which is rich in experience but psychologically and physically demanding. The challenges of living a sustainable and ethical life, amidst contemporary societies, are plenty, but in this research the main hurdles are located in the shortage of time, and rootlessness, in the form of eroded communal bonds, lack of peer support, and broken intergenerational relations.

Education is not neutral nor impartial. Although the liberal take on education is 'the great equalizer', Marxist education scholars would reject this statement under the current societal conditions. As capitalist societies are based on competition, merit, and thus winners over losers, Marxist education scholars would instead argue, like I do, that the education reflects the surrounding capitalist society, and thus produces unequal outcomes. I explore the connections between education and capitalism, in this chapter, especially through the work of the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser. In his work the concept of reproduction is central. By portraying the reproduction of capitalism, in which Althusser's conception of capitalist education is paramount, this chapter describes education a process of capitalist subjection to dominant ideology, norms, and attitudes, or in other words, education as a process of indoctrination to the capitalist society. Because the micro world of education increasingly mirrors the logics and needs of capital, education therefore commits students for careerism and meritocratic competition, but also rewards submission, in much the same fashion that Althusser pictured capitalist education in France at the late 1960s.

Most sustainability analyses of the future privilege the urban in future scenarios of climate change at the expense of providing scenarios about the future of the rural, in part because rural regions provide the urban with most of its resources. It is also expected that urban regions will potentially account for up to 70% of the global population by 2050 so most future scenarios of sustainability focus on such regions. Given this over privileging of the urban in sustainability studies, this chapter instead presents a condensed overview of three possible future scenarios of rural areas beginning in 2050 and beyond. Each scenario correlates with a different level of possible human-caused global warming and the correlated implications of possible sustainability in rural areas depending on how hot the earth will become by the end of the century. A variety of social, environmental, and economic metrics are briefly analyzed, with their implications for sustainable futures in rural areas analyzed and discussed.

Both capital accumulation and technological development need each other, but are also conditioned and defined by each other: to develop technology, capital is needed; to be able to accumulate capital, new investment opportunities are constantly needed (see also Heikkurinen et al. 2019b, 4– 5). As Marx and Marxist scholars would point out (e.g. Marx 1973; Wendling 2009), capital’s relation to technology is specific and instrumental in a certain way, that is, capital investments foster and steer technology and its development in a direction that favours further capital accumulation. Indeed, within capitalism, technology reflects capital’s self-image, i.e., it is instrumental, dynamic, and expansive. In addition to being an investment opportunity, technology clearly is a commodity within capitalism—a means of exchange, and a source of revenue, and profit. In practice, these things entail that technology and its development, in capitalism, are about endlessly producing and marketing new technologies involving a profit motive. In other words, in this organization, technology and its development do not have a purpose apart from the creation of monetary value. Technology is thus an instrument of capital accumulation, but capital accumulation is also an instrument for developing complex technological appliances and systems. In this chapter, this modern-day assembly is framed as the alliance of capital and technology, to highlight the intertwined relation of capital accumulation and technological development, and how they both produce conditions for alienation. Since the days of Hegel and Marx, critical scholars and philosophers have tried to understand the experience of alienation from nature, society, and the self. Although questions of technology have been incorporated into these analyses to some extent, the relation between modern technology and alienation has remained understudied until today. In this chapter, technological development and capital accumulation are discussed as key conditions for alienation. This is because both of them contribute to the lack of control and freedom in personal and communal lives, albeit in somewhat different ways, and generate personal and communal detachment from fellow humans and from the rest of living nature.

In this article, we study politics as domination. From our point of view, domination, especially in the Anthropocene, has had two vital components-power and supremacy. In order to dominate, one has to have power over others. In addition, the politics of domination, such as colonial oppression of Latin America, has required reasoning, justification, and legitimation, often connected to superiority (because of religion, society, or civilization) from the oppressor's end. Past and present political ideologies and programs, such as colonialism, imperialism, but also welfare state capitalism, neoliberalism and increasingly popular Green New Deal are examples of what we call "anthropolitics," an anthropocentric approach to politics based on domination, power, and supremacist exploitation. In contrast to the prevailing anthropolitics, this article discusses post-Anthropocene politics, characterized by localization and decentralization, as well as a steep reduction of matter-energy throughput by introducing a theoretical frame called ecological realism.

Capitalism is ecologically irredeemable. It simply cannot be fixed. This is because capitalism is based on endless capital accumulation, entailing growth in material throughput, whereas the planet Earth is finite. From this conclusion of ecological Marxism, this book continues to theorise how capitalism is reproduced in the 21st century. It is argued that the logic of capital and production based on the profit motive, competition and productivity enhancements is not enough to reproduce capitalism, but a wide variety of national and transnational institutional arrangements, repressive and ideological state apparatuses are needed as well to secure and protect its continuation. One of the most important state institutions from this perspective is higher education. Higher education has an integral role not only in educating people to become part of the capitalist production, but also has a significant role in providing knowledge, innovations and other outputs for expansive capital accumulation. Based on neoliberal restructuring of contemporary higher education, it is claimed that one of the primary purposes of higher education is to reproduce capitalism, and because of this higher education is increasingly functioning on an ecologically unsustainable basis.

Non-technical summary The industrial food system is widely considered to be unsustainable due to its undesired climate and health effects. One proposed alternative to these problems is a more local system of food provisioning. This means involving individuals, households, and communities in growing and acquiring edibles, like vegetables and other food stuff. This study based on a literature review found that food self-provisioning practitioners are mainly driven by health concerns and less by reasoning linked to the environment, like climate change adaptation and mitigation. We propose that the potential of food self-provisioning is underutilised in developing the sustainability of food systems. Technical summary In this article, we review and analyse the literature and concept of ‘food self-provisioning’ in order to understand its potential as a response to contemporary challenges. The focus of the study is on investigating the meanings related to environmental problems, particular...

Antroposeenissa ihmiset kayttavat vaarin valtaansa suhteessa ei-inhimilliseen maailmaan, lahinna tyydyttaen toissijaisia tarpeitaan ja alati kasvavia materiaalisia halujaan. Yleisesti hyvaksytysta ihmiskeskeisesta maailmankuvasta johtuen vallan vaarinkayttoa ei tulkita vakivallaksi vaan kehitykseksi. Elonkeha ei kuitenkaan ole olemassa pelkastaan ihmisia varten. On siis aika maaritella vakivalta uudelleen. Artikkeli perustuu kahteen esitykseen, joista toinen pidettiin Jyvaskylassa Sosiologipaivilla maaliskuussa 2016 ja toinen viikkoa myohemmin Elavan filosofian keskusteluriihessa Helsingissa.

The Special Issue on ‘After the Anthropocene: Time and Mobility’ is published. It discusses the geological time to follow the human-dominated epoch and ways to move there. In addition to this editorial, a total of five articles are published in the issue. The articles engage with a variety of social science disciplines—ranging from economics and sociology to philosophy and political science—and connect to the natural science insights on the Anthropocene. The issue calls for going beyond anthropocentrism in sustainability theory and practice in order to exit the Anthropocene with applications and insights in the contexts of politics (Ruuska et al., 2020), energy (Mohorčich, 2020), tourism (Rantala et al., 2020), food (Mazac and Tuomisto, 2020) and management (Küpers, 2020). We hope that you will find this Special Issue interesting and helpful in contributing to sustainable change.