If the technosphere is a condition of the Anthropocene, we ought to acknowledge the dangers of making technology seem “natural.” Critical discard studies can help us make visible the violence that has gone into making the technosphere.
The labeling of the “Anthropocene” as a geological epoch—or possibly an extinction event—refers to the current era in which human-made processes have changed planetary cycles for climate, ocean currents, and mineral circulation, among others. For many researchers, it is an effort to acknowledge the link between global capitalism, colonialism, and the various structural injustices that have proliferated in the twenty-first century, such as global climate change, mass poverty, social inequity, and so on.