Spoiling the Anthropo(s)cene. Between Rewilding and Grounding

The article proposes spoiling as a mode of attunement to conflicting eco-social relations in the Anthropocene. Spoiling interrupts the anthropo(s)cenic regime that explains away intricate natural-cultural phenomena from a single, universal(ised) perspective. The author discusses spoiling by analysing and comparing selected performative projects the Ruhr (Germany) and the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (Poland). Using tactics of rewilding and grounding, these projects spoil dominant discourses and practices of re-naturalising the regions’ polluted rivers. The article shows how the projects situate the rivers within eco-social processes of exclusion, marginalisation and violence while fostering more just futures for both regions.