Emergent Ecologies

About this book

In an era of global warming, natural disasters, endangered species, and devastating pollution, contemporary writing on the environment largely focuses on doomsday scenarios. Eben Kirksey suggests we reject such apocalyptic thinking and instead find possibilities in the wreckage of ongoing disasters, as symbiotic associations of opportunistic plants, animals, and microbes are flourishing in unexpected places. Emergent Ecologies uses artwork and contemporary philosophy to illustrate hopeful opportunities and reframe key problems in conservation biology such as invasive species, extinction, environmental management, and reforestation. Following the flight of capital and nomadic forms of life through fragmented landscapes of Panama, Costa Rica, and the United States Kirksey explores how chance encounters, historical accidents, and parasitic invasions have shaped present and future multispecies communities. New generations of thinkers and tinkerers are learning how to care for emergent ecological assemblages involving frogs, fungal pathogens, ants, monkeys, people, and plants by seeding them, nurturing them, protecting them, and ultimately letting go.

Contents

Introduction

1. Parallax
2. Ontological Amphibians
3. Hope in the Reverted Zone
4. Happiness and Glass
5. Bubbles
6. Xenoecologies
7. Becoming Wild
8. Multispecies Families
9. Parasites of Capitalism
10. Possible Futures

Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Eben Kirksey is a permanent faculty member in Environmental Humanities at UNSW Australia and a Visiting Research Scholar at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the editor of The Multispecies Salon and the author of Freedom in Entangled Worlds: West Papua and the Architecture of Global Power, both also published by Duke University Press.