The Ethics and Rhetoric of Invasion Ecology

(Hardback)

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The Ethics and Rhetoric of Invasion Ecology provides an introduction to the controversial treatment and ongoing violence routinely utilized against non-native species. Drawing from the tradition of critical animal scholars, Stanescu and Cummings have assembled a group of advocates who argue for a different kind of relationship with foreign species. Where contemporary approaches often emphasize the need to eradicate ecological invaders in order to preserve delicate habitats, the essays in this volume aim to reformulate the debate by arguing for an alternative approach that advances the possibility of an ethics of co-habitation.

Reviews

This theoretically nuanced, scientifically informed, and historically and culturally sensitive collection delves into the logics of extermination at a crucial time. As our activities create more and more refugees, both human and nonhuman, the rhetoric of invasion has unprecedented power that calls us to ask critical questions. The essays in this volume, written by philosophers, geographers, environmental humanities scholars and others, provide a necessary intervention that will help us grapple with the complexities of ecological and social harms created by the eradication of individuals and species deemed non-native. -- Lori Gruen, William Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University and author of "Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationships with Other Animals"
This collection refreshingly approaches the issue of invasion ecology from the urgently needed perspectives of ethics and rhetoric. Each of these essays questions the received idea of an "invasive species" as a morally compromised destroyer of a privileged "ecosystem," a category with an inherent moral andaesthetic stamp of approval. The essays expose the rhetorical stances of invasion, migration, and reproductive futurism across species boundaries, indicting the nativist and colonialist discourses that sustain the oppression and abuse of human and nonhuman animals alike. The stories we tell when we separate invaders from the ecology they supposedly invade draw on deeply ingrained discourses of nativism and colonialism. These essays do not simply take those stories apart: each one tells new, more inclusive stories that can structure more inclusive, generous, and ethically engaged ecosystems. -- Robert Stanton, Boston College
This volume introduces a broad set of valuable, insightful and critical interventions into the field of invasion ecology that one hopes will be engaged with by both conservation biologists and the wider policy sphere in order to provoke debate and contest current practice -- Richard Twine, Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences, Co-Director of Centre for Human-Animal Studies (CfHAS), Edge Hill University

Author Bio

James K. Stanescu is professorial lecturer of philosophy at American University Kevin Cummings is professor and chair of the Department of Communication Studies at Mercer University