Arqueologías para después del fin del mundo

We find it easier to conceive of the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Today, it seems more natural to imagine the total collapse of the Earth and nature than the downfall of the capitalist system. Faced with the apparent impossibility of envisioning an alternative to this way of life and socioeconomic system, we are left with Margaret Thatcher’s infamous slogan: “There is no alternative.” This notion positions the economic liberalism and free-market doctrines of the global North as the only viable path for the development of modern societies.

As a result, we have gradually lost the ability to imagine a future beyond dystopian scenarios dictated by the Anthropocene. Now, we can only conceive of futures where environmental destruction and the decline of human civilization are inevitable. However, this has not always been the case. In the 16th century, Thomas More envisioned a fictional community built upon the philosophical and political ideals of the classical world and Christianity—a city he called Utopia.

More recently, posthumanist ideologies have emerged, aligning with what Donna J. Haraway describes as “staying with the trouble”—imagining possible futures through collective speculative fabulation.

The project Archaeologies for After the End of the World seeks to establish narratives within this line of inquiry by reconstructing a fictional world after ruin. Once we have reached the end, what will remain?

It is an effort to envision alternatives to the way we live now—an attempt to see beyond a society gripped by fear and its obsessive technologies, to explore other ways of being, and even to imagine real reasons for hope.