Del antropoceno al tecnoceno: nueva era geológica y nuevas formas de gubernamentalidad del animal humano

Abstract

This paper first addresses the 21st-century scientific debate surrounding the concept of the Anthropocene as a new geological era in which human beings, for the first time in the planet’s history, become the endogenous agent driving the transition from one geological era to another. Secondly, the Anthropocene is approached as a cultural concept from the perspective of the human sciences, where the issue leads to an ethical and political question about human ways of life since Modernity. To this end, the article analyzes the concepts of Capitalocene and Technocene as notions that seek to specify the particular conditions of our present. Finally, it discusses the consequences of the techno-scientific advances of the last century in order to understand one of the key elements of this new era: the governmentality of the Anthropocene—a distinct rationality of governing subjects and populations, made possible through technologies, devices, and media that sustain the informational order, which permeates and has profoundly transformed the experience of human life.