The concept of the Anthropocene has – perhaps like no other – captured contemporary thought on evolving planetary unsustainability. However, by accepting the Anthropocene as the predicament of our epoch, we also legitimate the idea that history has come to an end. That there are no alternatives to contemporary Modernity. Unsettling the Anthropocene requires that we learn to listen to those historically oppressed by the project of Modernity and learn about their emancipatory struggles and alternatives that constitute the pluriverse.

This theme issue presents four research articles, an interview with Arturo Escobar, a polemic intervention by Jason W. Moore, and following commentaries by Federico Luisetti, Japhy Wilson, and Carlos Tornel, to discuss the opportunities and challenges set forth by pluriversal politics. The collection of texts calls for a dialogue between schools of thought studying the entanglements of environmental and political struggles. This theme issue seeks to engage with these radical possibilities that constitute the pluriverse by providing a rich set of examples that seek alternative visions for politics and political agency, calling for the recognition of differences and specificities of socio-environmental struggles.