Seminar moderators Adania Shibli and Simon Turner reflect on the meaning of consensus building in the Anthropocene and ask, what enables consensus to occur?

The act of consensus building is both a crucial part of scientific process and vital to identifying and solving problems in the broader social world. Following on from their seminar that took place during The Shape of a Practice, author Adania Shibli and scientific researcher Simon Turner reflect on the meaning of consensus building in the Anthropocene. While there is no definitive method for consensus building and exclusion is inevitable—whether consensual or caused by power relations and hierarchy—we can acknowledge the multiplicities of shared knowledge developed together as enriching and something that actually weakens the tendency to power. In addition, Shibli and Turner ask, how might the shifts in thinking that occur through minor human interactions, which can enable consensus building, be affected by the isolated and “on-screen” reality of the COVID-19 era?