The Anthropocene City: multispecies stories of climate challenges in the Öresund region
Facts
- Contact person:
- Mathilda Rosengren
- Financer:
-
- Formas
- Responsible at MaU:
- Mathilda Rosengren
- Time frame:
- 01 January 2026 - 31 December 2029
- Faculty/department:
- Research environment :
- Research subject:
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- Sustainability Studies
- Urban Studies
- Anthropocene studies
- More-than-human urban studies
About the project
The Anthropocene forces humankind to confront its impact and reliance on non-human life. This is especially true in urban contexts that have been designed almost exclusively with humans in mind. Yet, a distinct gap between Anthropocene theory and professional urban planning remains, blocking vital knowledge transfers to build future sustainable cities.
Aim
The study bridges this gap by constructing less anthropocentric framings of the city.
Focussing on urban climate challenges (heatwaves, floods, storms), it interrogates the encounter between multispecies lifeworlds and urban planning practices in the Öresund region (Copenhagen & Malmö) to:
- Identifying how non-humans negotiate life in the Anthropocene city;
- ethnographically situating these mutispecies stories within the context of concrete urban planning policies and climate mitigation practices in the region;
- Analyse how planning relates to non-human life and advance a transformative multispecies understanding of the Anthropocene city to academics, professionals, and civil society.
The study will develop new theorisations of the Anthropocene city, advance a distinct multispecies urban methodology, and develop practical guidelines to inform Nordic urban planning and public debates. The results offer crucial interdisciplinary insights (urban & landscape studies and multispecies social sciences with natural scientific and humanistic perspectives) to create sustainable cities in times of drastic climate change.