Urban ecology, although a burgeoning field, is becoming massive. In this field, there is much to think about when developing a question investigating the effect of “urbanization” on a particular species. Even within “urbanization” (which most urban ecologists recognize as just semantics and not a clear definition), there are many quantifications for this (see Moll 2020). There are many layers to urbanization — housing density, population, amount of impervious cover, and/or green space availability. The list goes on and on. Recently, there has been a discussion to bridge social aspects in a more explicit fashion than previous papers that have discussed social-ecological pressures, such as Collins 2011, Ramalho and Hobbs 2012, and Pickett et al 2016 (see Schell et al 2020 and Des Roches et al 2021 as well). These new discussions about integrating society into ecology and the impact of systemic racism on urban systems have birthed larger conversations about what we’ve been overlooking and how we find it.
Enter queer theory — something I believe is fundamentally missing from the field of urban ecology (but see Gandy 2012 and Patrick 2014). Although acknowledged in a recent review paper, “Vegetation removal and increased night-time lighting to deter LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and other communities may have subsequent effects on disturbance regimes and local biodiversity that reduce habitat value for multiple species.” (Schell et al 2020), the surface is just being scratched for empirical work. Queer theory in urban ecology, to me, is much more than thinking about how policies and attitudes towards queer folk shape the landscape that wildlife interacts with. Queer theory is a complete reframing of thought. It’s taking concepts like “wildlife” and even “landscape” and queering them. Explicitly integrating queer thought into urban ecological and evolutionary processes is a task that may feel daunting to an ecologist who has had firm training in the natural sciences (speaking from my current experience). However, it can provide immense theoretical value that could strengthen the questions you ask in your respective field.
Figure adapted from pages in “Queer Theory: A Graphic History” by Dr. Meg-John Barker and Julia Scheele
So what does the term “queer” or “queering” mean? Just like urbanization, it depends on who you ask. Queer can function as a noun, verb, or adjective — every person will have a different definition since the term itself is fluid. How you decide to equip yourself with it is ultimately up to you. Particular definitions I think are relevant to urban ecology and the natural sciences more broadly are queer/queering as:
(1) “An array of subjectivities, intimacies, beings, and spaces located outside of the heteronormative” (Chen 184).
(2) “An understanding of ecology as naming not the idea of the ‘natural world’ as something set apart from humans but a complex system of interdependency’ (Chen and Luciano, 7).
(3) “Tracing an affective materiality that interrupts anthropocentric body logics and space-time continuums rather than a sovereign stance of negation in relation to Law” (Ahuja, 372).
I’m currently working on a paper where I walk through what it would mean for an ecologist like you and me to tether this work to how we think about concepts in ecology. When the way we understand species and their interactions are disturbed by queer theory, what can we observe? What does it unlock, and what questions become strengthened? So many questions are unlocked with queer theory, and answers aren’t always found. However, I think that in itself is the excitement that pulls us as ecologists to become better scientists!
If you are interested in dabbling in queer theory to think about how it may change your work, there are pieces that I have read in the past five months that I recommend below. There are many more pieces that may be particularly relevant to your work (e.g., urban genetics, host-parasite interactions), and I encourage you to seek a very different perspective in the understanding of these concepts in order to strengthen the work you do.
- Mel Chen, Animacies (chapters 3 and 4 particularly)
- Dana Luciano and Mel. Y. Chen, “Has the Queer Ever Been Human?”
- Melissa Nelson, “Getting Dirty: The Eco-Criticism of Women in Indigenous Oral Literatures”
- Kim TallBear and Angela Wiley, “Critical Relationality: Queer, Indigenous, Ad MultiSpecies Belonging Beyond Settler Sex & Nature”
- Macarena Gomez-Barris, The Extractive Zone: Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives
- Neel Ahuja, “Intimate Atmospheres: Queer Theory in a Time of Extinctions”
- Michelle Murphy, “Distributed Reproduction, Chemical Violence, and Latency”
- Elizabeth M. DeLoughrey, “Gendering Earth: Excavating Plantation Soil” in Allegories of the Anthropocene
- Elizabeth Hoover, ” ‘Fires Were Lit Inside Them:’ The Pyropolitics of Fire Protector Camps at Standing Rock”
- Kathryn Yusoff and Nigel Clark, “Queer Fire: Ecology, Combustion and Pyrosexual Desire”
Papers Referenced:
Ahuja, Neel. 2015. “Intimate Atmospheres: Queer Theory in a Time of Extinctions.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 21 (2-3): 365–85.
Chen, Mel Y. 2012. Animacies. Duke University Press.
Collins, Scott L., Stephen R. Carpenter, Scott M. Swinton, Daniel E. Orenstein, Daniel L. Childers, Ted L. Gragson, Nancy B. Grimm, et al. 2011. “An Integrated Conceptual Framework for Long‐term Social–ecological Research.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 9 (6): 351–57.
Des Roches, Simone, Kristien I. Brans, Max R. Lambert, L. Ruth Rivkin, Amy Marie Savage, Christopher J. Schell, Cristian Correa, et al. 2021. “Socio-Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics in Cities.” Evolutionary Applications 14 (1): 248–67.
Luciano, Dana, and Mel Y. Chen. 2015. “Introduction: Has the Queer Ever Been Human?” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 21 (2): iv – 207.
Moll, Remington J., Jonathon D. Cepek, Patrick D. Lorch, Patricia M. Dennis, Eric Tans, Terry Robison, Joshua J. Millspaugh, and Robert A. Montgomery. 2019. “What Does Urbanization Actually Mean? A Framework for Urban Metrics in Wildlife Research.” The Journal of Applied Ecology 56 (5): 1289–1300.
Ramalho, Cristina E., and Richard J. Hobbs. 2012. “Time for a Change: Dynamic Urban Ecology.” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 27 (3): 179–88.
Schell, Christopher J., Karen Dyson, Tracy L. Fuentes, Simone Des Roches, Nyeema C. Harris, Danica Sterud Miller, Cleo A. Woelfle-Erskine, and Max R. Lambert. 2020. “The Ecological and Evolutionary Consequences of Systemic Racism in Urban Environments.” Science, August, eaay4497.
Featured Image is adapted from pages in “Queer Theory: A Graphic History” by Dr. Meg-John Barker and Julia Scheele
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