Facing Anthropocene Threats : Rational Bureaucracy vs. Anthropocene Climate Change in The Southern Reach by Jeff VanderMeer

Sammanfattning: Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach series has been a talking point for many ecocritical papers exploring themes of Anthropocene, uncanny, and hyperobjects. Despite the plethora of themes being investigated concerning climate change in Southern Reach, an important aspect, the climate change bureaucracy of the Southern Reach agency, is glossed over. This agency is responsible for containing Area X as well as understanding it. By primarily looking at Max Weber’s notions of bureaucracy and Jale Tosun’s and Michael Howelett’s discussion on public bureaucracy facing climate change, this thesis explores why the bureaucratic system of the Southern Reach fails to deal with climate change and, more importantly, claims that a rational bureaucratic administrative system is not equipped to deal with environmental changes of Area X because it defies the epistemological capacity of rational bureaucracy.