The two examples above offer remarkable insights for the dis-cussion about memory practices and regimes in times of the Anthropocene and their consequences for preparing for unknown futures. They show how different processes of narrating the past can lead to diverse understandings of current events together with various forms of coping with them. The heterogeneity of memory practices presents several challenges for dealing with future disasters jointly: How can narrations of the past that incorporate different meanings and even agents become
62 coherent? How can different world projects communicate with each other?
Susan Leigh Star and James Griesemer (1989) addressed similar questions when researching the scientific practices behind the work of museums. The authors analyzed the operations of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in Berkeley, California, a renowned institution of natural history working as a repository of regional specimens of vertebrates, where the work of scientists and amateur collectors comes together. According to Leigh Star and Griesemer, two main factors contribute to the proper functioning of the museum and the creation of alliances among heterogeneous groups of agents. The authors emphasize the definition of methods standardization, namely, a collection of standards, protocols, and even devices that ensure the par-ticipation of the diverse range of agents involved, including scientists, collectors, local animal trappers, and financial supporters. From their conducted research, Leigh Star and Griesemer conclude that the development of what they call boundary objects is a fundamental aspect of developing joint work. Boundary objects are plastic enough to adapt to local needs and understandings, but robust enough to maintain a shared identity despite their plasticity across different places.
Common boundary objects are those used in different worlds simultaneously to produce shareable understanding—in the case of the museum to collaborate for representing nature—even if they do not agree on what the object itself is (Leigh Star and Griesemer 1989, 393). They can include specimens, field notes, museums themselves, and maps, which can be locally appro-priated and abstractly conceived (Leigh Star and Griesemer 1989, 410).
For the purposes of mountain guide Saúl Lliuya’s case, it is possible to find some traces of methods standardization and boundary objects. Because the courts operate under Western epistemologies derived from Enlightenment traditions, Saúl Lliuya is required to scientifically prove that the consequences of
RWE’s emissions are directly affecting the security of Huaraz. He 63 does find support in a large group of scientists and experts who are willing to demonstrate the connection between anthropo-genic emissions and glacial ice melting. The narrative work—i.e., the sense-giving about the historical impact of RWE on the trans-formation of lifestyles in Huaraz—has to be achieved through scientific evidence, including hydroclimatic data and analysis embodied in memory devices such as temperature charts, pre-cipitation records, and glacial modeling giving signs of climatic fluctuations over the last centuries. However, this narration work also requires the registering of life stories evidencing the impact that climatic transformation has had for local lives in the short and medium term.
In this sense, the definition of boundary objects has to be general enough to allow common discussions, but sufficiently plastic to be signified differently according to the context. Our example of outburst floods can be understood as a remarkable example of this. The destructive capacity of such events is large enough to be relevant in different contexts, whether for the inhabitants of Huaraz and Llupa or the members of the regional court in Hamm. However, the form in which the event relates to the past narratives of agents is diverse. Saúl Lliuya focuses on previous floods to argue the consequences that a possible outburst of Palcacocha may produce in the region, together with the responsibility that companies like RWE should assume for coping with them. For the environmental NGO German Watch, however, a potential flood is a form of exemplifying through a local case the consequences that the historical emissions of companies like RWE have had on a global scale. RWE, on the other hand, sees the increase in flood risks as the result of the lifestyles assumed by a considerable part of the population (at least from the so-called
“Global North”). Under this view, a search for those responsible for the emissions and, thereby, the current climate trends, is not only impossible but unfair—an argument that ultimately reminds us of the famous phrase of Ulrich Beck (1997, 14): “Society
64 becomes a laboratory with nobody responsible for the outcomes of experiments.” It is through the consideration of all of these perspectives that the German Regional Court must evaluate whether the connection between greenhouse gases and flood risk is solid enough to find RWE guilty under German law. The court must determine if other cases in the history of the German justice system could sustain Saúl Lliuya’s lawsuit, translating the elements involved in Palcacocha’s flood risks to the German jurisdiction.
The remarkable aspect of Saúl Lliuya’s case is its capacity to connect a local glacial retreatment with a global scale of discus-sion. It has the possibility of tracing centuries of carbon emis-sion into the atmosphere within local stories of glacial lakes’
outburst floods and risk preparedness. This connection requires a standardized form of narration for the boundary object—the outburst flooding—that is re-signified not just as an accelerated process of glacial melting due to the actions of humankind, but also as the direct result of a specific set of actors, the “carbon majors,” to use Heede’s (2014) term. By standardizing the causes of the flood, the connection made by Saúl Lliuya makes possible the process of temporal acceleration and compression of the Anthropocene, connecting centuries of carbon emission into the atmosphere with millions of years of geostory, now embodied in a company with names, offices, and electric stations. Accepting RWE’s responsibility in this case means, therefore, recognizing the company as a geological force.