ABSTRACT

This chapter argues for the recognition of many worlds on one planet as a contribution to a new understanding of global sustainability governance in the Anthropocene. In this new epoch, stable Holocene patterns do not hold, and human/non-human and nature/society dichotomies can limit research and governance practices. Thus, the traditional categories of environmental politics may not adequately answer to social-nature changes and challenges. Many worlds mean that on a single planet – the Earth – there is a multiplicity of worlds that intersect, overlap, and conflict, and which are co- constituents and co-vulnerable. Such recognition opens up the possibility of new research avenues, as exemplified here by the Daoist, the Andean-Amazonian and the Oromo cosmovision, and the Islamic perspective.