Of ruins and ruination: Infrastructures against the Anthropocene

In the center of Mexico City’s downtown lies the Metropolitan Cathedral. It originally was built in the 16th century directly over the ceremonial precinct of the recently conquered Aztec capital city, Tenochtitlan. The cathedral represents a material symbol of Christianity, conquest, exploitation, and empire. The Anthropocene creates a specific role for the past in its vision of the Human Age. Researchers look to the past to design a better future. Paleoecologists are employed to re-create wildernesses. Anthropologists study traditional ecological knowledge and the sustainability of past socio-ecological systems. The Anthropocene’s cosmology is influenced by powerful historical antecedents. A project that places a moral-ethical judgment on the past and present is not new. The births of many Western sciences and expressive movements were marked by a fixation to characterize modernity as a rupture from some pre-modern world when life was personal and institutions buffered social relationships.