Encountering Ghosts of the Capitalocene on Northern German Walkways

Authors

Lara-Lane Plambeck, Christian Albrecht University of Kiel, GermanyFollow

Keywords

marxism, Capitalocene, capitalist realism, decoloniality, rural culture, walking, flaneur, De Certeau, Anna Tsing, Ghosts, Anthropocene, Landscape, Benjamin, Williams, capital, Ruins, attention

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Research Article

Abstract

Walking is a two-fold practice of both transcendence reflecting capitalist conformity as well as of potential for resistance. Applying the theory on walking traditionally associated with the subject in the modern city (Benjamin 1999) to today‘s Northern German countryside, I will argue that the dominant structures of feeling reflected in the walking culture and rural people‘s engagement with the land today is characterized by a sense of capitalist realism (Fisher 2009) and informed by the feeling of alienation leading to the fetishization of landscape. I, too want to explore walking‘s potential to step out of capitalist conformity. When intentionally walking to meet ghosts in the ruins of the Capitalocene (Tsing et al. 2017), the practice of walking can become an act of resistance challenging capitalist realism, revealing the structures that oppress both people and land and empowering people to imagine life beyond capitalism as well as reworking our relationship to the land toward a more authentic one.

Recommended Citation

Plambeck, Lara-Lane (2023) "Encountering Ghosts of the Capitalocene on Northern German Walkways," Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis: Vol. 2: Iss. 1, Article 6.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55533/2765-8414.1038
Available at: https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/emancipations/vol2/iss1/6