Theory, Culture & Society 2017, Vol. 34(2–3) 233–252 ! The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0263276415598629 journals.sagepub.com/home/tcs Special Issue: Geosocial Formations and the Anthropocene Anthropocene Formations: Environmental Security, Geopolitics and Disaster Simon Dalby Wilfrid Laurier University Abstract The discussion of the Anthropocene makes it clear that contemporary social thought can no longer take nature, or an external ‘environment’, for granted in political discussion. Humanity is remaking its own context very rapidly, not only in the processes of urbanization but also in the larger context of global biophysical trans- formations that provide various forms of insecurity. Disasters such as the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns and potentially disastrous plans to geoengineer the climate in coming decades highlight that the human environment is being remade in the Anthropocene. Humanity is now a geological actor, not just a biological one, and that insight, captured in the term Anthropocene, changes understandings of both security and environment in social thought, requiring a focus on production of envir- onments rather than their protection. Disasters help clarify this key point and its significance for considering geosocial formations. Keywords disaster, ecology, security Geosocial Formations To a growing degree human insecurity is now a matter relating to the global economy, its economic entitlements, and the technological systems in which those are enmeshed. In the modern cities of the global north, economic activities and the mundane practicalities of everyday life are directly related to the supply of electricity to homes and workplaces. While disasters and insecurity are not new in the human condition, and volcanoes in particular have seriously disrupted agriculture dramat- ically in recent centuries, what is now clear is that disasters and human vulnerability are increasingly artificial matters in an urbanized biosphere Corresponding author: Simon Dalby. Email: sdalby@gmail.com Extra material: http://theoryculturesociety.org/