biographies of extinctions:
theorising absence and loss in a
more-than-human world
Thom van Dooren
Anthropologist Shiv Visvanathan has argued that we have no adequate way of conceptualising extinction in the modern west – in his words, “science has no mourning rituals” (1996:311). This situation raises particular concern at the present time, as we move ever more deeply into the Earth’s sixth great extinction event. Even now, however, in place of any genuine reckoning with loss, we are simply offered lists and numbers of endangered and extinct creatures.
This research project draws on the theoretical tools of the Ecological Humanities and Science and Technology Studies (STS), to give a fuller account of the absences that anthropogenic extinction is increasingly creating in the world. Within the context of the co-constitutional more-than-human world that scholars like Deborah Bird Rose (2004), Donna Haraway (2003) and Anna Tsing (2005) have described, it becomes clear that these kinds of absences cannot be adequately conceptualised within the context of any single discipline. Rather, they must be understood to be simultaneously ecological, cultural, religious, economic and more – mattering to different groups, human and non-human, in different but interrelated ways.
This project is based around various plant and animal case studies from geographically diverse regions. Primarily, these are creatures that are currently approaching extinction. Operating in this liminal space – between existence and disappearance – I am attempting to capture the rupture in the biosocial field of life that is created by extinctions, before the more-than-human community has had time to completely adjust and fill this gap (if this ever happens?).
Within the framework provided by these case studies, I am engaging with a variety of broader questions, including: what do various ways of thinking about extinctions reveal about our understandings of how we, as a human species, fit into the struggling ecosystems of this planet? What do extinctions show us about the precariousness of life and ecosystems? And finally, how do extinctions fit into this world of transience and change in which death is ultimately inevitable? In short, why do extinctions matter?
Anthropologist Shiv Visvanathan has argued that we have no adequate way of conceptualising extinction in the modern west – in his words, “science has no mourning rituals” (1996:311). This situation raises particular concern at the present time, as we move ever more deeply into the Earth’s sixth great extinction event. Even now, however, in place of any genuine reckoning with loss, we are simply offered lists and numbers of endangered and extinct creatures.
This research project draws on the theoretical tools of the Ecological Humanities and Science and Technology Studies (STS), to give a fuller account of the absences that anthropogenic extinction is increasingly creating in the world. Within the context of the co-constitutional more-than-human world that scholars like Deborah Bird Rose (2004), Donna Haraway (2003) and Anna Tsing (2005) have described, it becomes clear that these kinds of absences cannot be adequately conceptualised within the context of any single discipline. Rather, they must be understood to be simultaneously ecological, cultural, religious, economic and more – mattering to different groups, human and non-human, in different but interrelated ways.
This project is based around various plant and animal case studies from geographically diverse regions. Primarily, these are creatures that are currently approaching extinction. Operating in this liminal space – between existence and disappearance – I am attempting to capture the rupture in the biosocial field of life that is created by extinctions, before the more-than-human community has had time to completely adjust and fill this gap (if this ever happens?).
Within the framework provided by these case studies, I am engaging with a variety of broader questions, including: what do various ways of thinking about extinctions reveal about our understandings of how we, as a human species, fit into the struggling ecosystems of this planet? What do extinctions show us about the precariousness of life and ecosystems? And finally, how do extinctions fit into this world of transience and change in which death is ultimately inevitable? In short, why do extinctions matter?
Selected sources
Haraway, D. 2003. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.
Rose, D.B. 2004. Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Tsing, A.L. 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Visvanathan, S. 1996. "Footnotes to Vavilov: An Essay on Gene Diversity." in Decolonizing Knowledge: From Development to Dialogue, edited by F. Apffel-Marglin and S.A. Marglin. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
Haraway, D. 2003. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.
Rose, D.B. 2004. Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Tsing, A.L. 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Visvanathan, S. 1996. "Footnotes to Vavilov: An Essay on Gene Diversity." in Decolonizing Knowledge: From Development to Dialogue, edited by F. Apffel-Marglin and S.A. Marglin. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
"Life processes take place in
time, and are emplaced. The same must also be said of loss. Most
scientific analysis of environmental crisis deals in agglomerate
figures that are largely abstracted from place. In contrast, loss is
primarily experienced in place. We are unlikely to experience the
predicted loss of twenty-one out of twenty-four species of butterfly in
Australia, but we are almost certain to encounter absences – places
were butterflies used to be and are no more."
(Rose 2004: 49)
