Unloved Others:
Death of the
Disregarded
in the Time of Extinctions
A collection edited by Deborah Bird Rose and Thom van
Dooren
We were talking about animal charisma and extinctions. Our conversation turned this way and that as we considered what it takes to capture human imagination in this perilous era known as the Anthropocene, a time when much of the diversity of life on Earth is being lost through human action. Because of the pervasive impact of human agency, pathways toward life and death are formed or lost through calls that elicit, or do not elicit, human desire for another creature’s continuing existence. Fur is not necessary, we realised, thinking of much of the world’s relatively recent love affair with whales, but being a mammal certainly helps. We thought of the fetching, anthropomorphically cuddly images of pandas, and the elegant, dangerous glamour of tigers. We don’t share our lives with these creatures day by day, but they capture our imagination. Our minds swim with Moby Dick and flare with tigers burning bright. We pay large sums to visit pandas and other others in zoos. Given that these creatures who are so vividly present in our imaginative lives are nonetheless on the edge of loss, what hope could there possibly be for the countless other creatures who are less visible, less beautiful, less a part of our cultural lives? What of the unloved others, the ones who are disregarded, or who may be lost through negligence? What of the actively vilified and disliked others, those who may be specifically targeted for death? Then, too, what of those whose lives become objects of control in the name of conservation, and those whose lives are caught in the cross-hairs of conflicting human desires?
This collection is one response to these questions.
Introduction (with short chapter summaries)
Table of Contents
We were talking about animal charisma and extinctions. Our conversation turned this way and that as we considered what it takes to capture human imagination in this perilous era known as the Anthropocene, a time when much of the diversity of life on Earth is being lost through human action. Because of the pervasive impact of human agency, pathways toward life and death are formed or lost through calls that elicit, or do not elicit, human desire for another creature’s continuing existence. Fur is not necessary, we realised, thinking of much of the world’s relatively recent love affair with whales, but being a mammal certainly helps. We thought of the fetching, anthropomorphically cuddly images of pandas, and the elegant, dangerous glamour of tigers. We don’t share our lives with these creatures day by day, but they capture our imagination. Our minds swim with Moby Dick and flare with tigers burning bright. We pay large sums to visit pandas and other others in zoos. Given that these creatures who are so vividly present in our imaginative lives are nonetheless on the edge of loss, what hope could there possibly be for the countless other creatures who are less visible, less beautiful, less a part of our cultural lives? What of the unloved others, the ones who are disregarded, or who may be lost through negligence? What of the actively vilified and disliked others, those who may be specifically targeted for death? Then, too, what of those whose lives become objects of control in the name of conservation, and those whose lives are caught in the cross-hairs of conflicting human desires?
This collection is one response to these questions.
Introduction (with short chapter summaries)Table of Contents
“Introduction” (Deborah Bird Rose and Thom van Dooren)
- Anna Tsing, “Arts of Inclusion, or, How to Love a Mushroom”
- Mick Smith, “Dis(appearance): Earth, Ethics and Apparently (In)significant Others”
- Thom van Dooren, “Vultures and their People in India: Equity and Entanglement in a Time of Extinctions”
- James Hatley, “Blood Intimacies and Biodicy: Keeping Faith with Ticks”
- Kate Rigby, “Getting a Taste for Bogong Moth”
- Donna Haraway, “Speculative Fabulations for Technoculture’s Generations: Taking Care of Unexpected Country”
- Deborah Bird Rose, “Flying Fox: Kin, Keystone, Kontaminant”
- Matthew Chrulew, “Managing Love and Death at the Zoo: The Biopolitics of Endangered Species Preservation”
- Freya Matthews, “Planetary Collapse Disorder: Following Honeybees to the Limits of the Ethical, and Beyond”
