How strange theories recognize the importance of fluidity – as a fluidity and variable phenomenon, especially in regards to identity and sexuality, queer ecology challenges the idea of ”fixation” that supports the heterosexual concept of fixed identity, sexuality and gender roles.
It challenges strict classifications of Western science, reductionism with implicit heterosexual assumptions, and problematic binaries such as human/nature, natural/unnatural, rational/emotional/mind/body, male/female, wilderness/civilization. The complexity of the world has been reduced to a simple opposition that always has greater value.
culture
This mode of thinking has long been used to deny the expression of human diversity as “opposed to nature” or “unnatural” and to justify the oppression of sexual and gender diversity, as well as other forms of diversity. These are unstable foundations and conservation practices are well-established.
The assumption is that everyone is “naturally” heterosexual, and that this is “normal” and is superior to homosexual or bisexuality.
It also assumes gender binary, and sexual/romantic relationships only between these two genders, often with patriarchal undertones. It is hierarchical in nature, other, prejudiced, but often unconscious.
Heteronormatism manifests in many ways in conservation. Conservation conspires with the elimination of homosexuality in the nonhuman world by focusing solely on heterosexual breeding pairs.
The internal culture of many conservation organizations reflects the broader dominant heteronormative culture we live in, with leadership and decisions being dominated by white, bandaged and heterosexual men.
decentre
The specific contributions that queer communities can make to help them deal with the biodiversity crisis are often overlooked.
Conservation operates on the difference in power between humans and non-human animals. Human intervention is guided by the concept of values chosen by humans. Values that often center around our needs and desires – whether this is economic, ecological, or aesthetic value, even the importance of connecting with nature to human happiness.
Within the Western patriarchal culture and binary views of nature and gender, culture is masculinized and rooted in rationality and objectivity.
Intelligence is valuable despite the low value of emotions and intuition considered animals and women. This is used to justify control and domination of nature despite its pose as “conservation.”
The strange ecological approach will inevitably not only critically reassess the power relationship between humans and other beings, but will also recognize and support same-sex relationships and gender diversity in human and non-human communities.
force
It recognizes and respects agents, cultures and emotions of non-human species. It practices the odd ecological principles of embracing fluidity, change and complexity, empowers strange perspectives and leadership, and evaluates irrational faculties of operations and organizations.
There is a fundamental conflict between odd fluidity and traditional conservation trends that is limited to a single species-focused, controlled-based, and outcome-driven approach.
This is where we began to become synergistic with approaches such as rewilding, abandoning control and fixed consequences, draining human agendas, and clear challenges to traditional conservation philosophy and practice.
However, the rewild lacked a liberating lens, which, along with the colonial undertone, led to some major conflicts among communities that felt imposed on them by external forces. Combining principles and practices between these approaches may be a valuable exploration.
Fate
Recent research in social psychology has found that the same psychological mechanisms underlying racism, sexism and other prejudices also create speciesism.
Those who express stronger general biases have shown greater indifference to the biodiversity crisis, greater enthusiasm for the exploitation of nature, and strong resistance to action against climate change.
In other words, natural crises are crisis of oppression, and an approach that is not explicitly anti-controlling is not only ineffective, but can even inadvertently work in order to reinforce prejudice in general and make things worse.
Ultimately, the strange approach is also a decolonial, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, feminist, and class equity approach. Of course, these perspectives are intertwined, like the forest mycelium network, and the fruiting body appears in many places, but ultimately rooted in intertwining.
fluid
Recognizing that natural crisis is supported by a willingness to maintain control by people with power and privilege, conservation must act in solidarity with communities marginalized by this rule.
Many of these communities rethink the relationship between humans and nature, but they must work together in solidarity. We have many things in common and we are strong together.
In doing so, we can free the mysterious invisible world, as the strange ecologist Bruce Begmiful calls it. Biological vitality.
“The indescribable inexplicability of the earth’s mystery – as instant as the next beat… affirmation of life’s vitality and infinite possibilities: primitive and futuristic at one time, gender is yado-specific, sexual nature is multiple, male and female categories are fluid, like us.
This author
Kara Moses is a queer freelance educator, conservation forester for Radical Nature Connection and facilitator for Radical Nature Connection, in collaboration with the Common Cause Foundation. You can find out more info on www.rewildeverything.org. This article was first published Resurrection and the Ecologist magazine.
