WDM 2_23 Lecture | Planetarity: Landscapes of Double Consciousness

Abstract | In 1903 W.E.B. Du Bois elaborated the idea of double consciousness in his The Souls of Black Folk. Black Americans, he argued, were forced to see the world and themselves through the eyes of a white supremacist society. The idea of double consciousness has since been enriched by queer theory, feminism, gender studies, and more, with ‘triple consciousness’ and other framings added to and enlarging Dubois’s original theory. In this paper we argue that landscapes are likewise perceived and experienced in their plurality, through double, triple, multiple consciousness. Landscapes are the scenography of earthly power and financial might, but also the dialogic milieu of everyday lives. These are in conflict, but also result in hybrid formations as well as contestation and resistance. All landscapes in the world now express this multiplicity, whether as the result of settler colonialism, or the ways in which the same forces of imperialism transformed (and continue to transform) lives and landscapes at colonialism’s centre. In this paper we map two particular poles of understanding, landscapes of globality and planetarity. We explore globality as cartographic, imperial, and employing the language of colonialism, plantation, emparkment, and enclosure. In contrast we argue that planetarity is more dialogic, relational, and expressed in commonality, sharing, care, and management. While we recognise these two faces of landscape are in conflict, we contend that they also exist simultaneously in the same landscapes, often sharing the same consciousness, looking out through the same eye sockets. Understanding this not just as a duality, but as a trialectic enfolding hybrids and mutations, becomes a tool for working and thinking with all landscapes more effectively.