Introduction: The Mississippi River Basin—a model for studying the Anthropocene in situ

Abstract

Is it possible to trace ongoing transitions in the Earth system back to the regional scales at which they are produced and where their effects can be directly experienced? This editorial introduces two special issues of The Anthropocene Review that document a two-year, transdisciplinary experiment: a collaborative investigation of the Mississippi River Basin (MRB) as a model region for studying the Anthropocene condition in situ. Coordinated by the Anthropocene Curriculum, an initiative led by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science,¹ the project Mississippi. An Anthropocene River involved a large consortium of institutions and more than three hundred researchers, artists, activists, and local community members. Together, participants learned about, questioned, and experienced the Anthropocene at a level meaningful to people, a level at which historical legacies and future commitments play out amid concrete infrastructures and socio-ecological formations, and alongside existing inequalities and life’s everyday struggles. The introduction summarizes eleven scientific and creative research outputs that were selected from this wide-ranging experiment, contextualizes the river’s history, and explains the regional approach the project undertook.