Edge Effects

Conservation Is a Long Distance Relationship Physical distance can be crucial for responsible kinship, conservation, and care. Pangolin conservation is perhaps best from a world away.

Today on Edge Effects, @trangdang.bsky.social develops an ethics of care for pangolins, despite living a world away. Her “respectful distance” is a form of companionship rooted in humility, one that acknowledges interdependence without claiming possession and embraces intimacy without proximity. 🦔 🦡

Navigating Eco-Grief with Ancestral Grieving Practices - Edge Effects Guevara Han and Rae Jing Han draw on Filipino and Chinese ancestral practices to develop rituals for navigating eco-grief.

Today on Edge Effects Translation Tuesday, Christina Guevara and Rae Jing Han draw on Filipino and Chinese ancestral practices to develop collective rituals for navigating eco-grief. These practices, they argue, are life-affirming resistance. ⬆️ 🙌

Navegando el Eco-Duelo con Prácticas Ancestrales del Duelo - Edge Effects Guevara Han y Rae Jing Han recurren a prácticas ancestrales filipinas y chinas para afrontar el duelo ecológico.

Hoy en Edge Effects Translation Tuesday, Christina Guevara y Rae Jing Han se inspiran en prácticas ancestrales filipinas y chinas para desarrollar rituales colectivos que permitan abordar el duelo ecológico. Estas prácticas, argumentan, son una resistencia que afirma la vida. 🌏 ❤️

Synthetic Totems: Art for the Anthropocene Dongbay's "Synthetic Totems" combines fragments of nature with synthetic waste to spark reflection and connection in the Anthropocene.

Today on Edge Effects, Dongbay shares his exhibit, Synthetic Totems. "Creating in this state is not about seeking escape or repair, but about consciously dwelling within our shared pollution, tracing the strange beauty that still exists in death." ♻️ 🎨

Vegetal Diaspora and the Restless Life of Plants - Edge Effects Conceptualizing plants as migrants with their own diasporas reveals their connection to imperialism and encourages an ethic of care.

Today on Edge Effects, @jensbenohr.bsky.social follows the wandering of nalca across continents in this thoughtful meditation on migration, belonging, and the porous borders between human and plant life. The world is a garden of migrants, he argues, of both plants and people. 🌿 🧳

What Can Wetlands Teach Us About Queer Relations? The Tambass wetlands showcase the queer ecology and relations that characterize wetlands, shaped as they are by precarity and impermanence.

Today on Edge Effects, Richard Watts, Maureen Ryan, and Danny Hoffman wade through the queer ecology and relations that characterize wetlands, shaped as they are by precarity and survivance. With clips from their forthcoming documentary, they take us to the Tambass wetlands of Mauritania. 🐊 🏳️‍🌈

Parrots at Play in the Arab Soundscape - Edge Effects The voices of African grey parrots on Arab social media speak to the birds' autonomy and the complex dynamics of multispecies companionship.

Today on Edge Effects, Joseph Leidy deciphers the cacophany of African grey parrot voices on Arab social media, from faithful recitations of the Quran to antagonistic banter. The parrots, he argues, speak to autonomy and play in multispecies companionships. 🗣️ 🦜

Today on Edge Effects Translation Tuesday, @katherinecheung.bsky.social ponders “plant blindness.” Performance arts, she suggests, may be just what we need to slow down enough to begin to appreciate the plant life around us. 👓 🌱

Ceguera Vegetal y 'Viendo' las Escalas Temporales de las Plantas Katherine Cheung analiza nuestra ceguera hacia las plantas, la atribución de mente vegetal y el rol de las artes performativas en la comprensión de las escalas temporales de las plantas.

Hoy en Edge Effects Translation Tuesday, @katherinecheung.bsky.social reflexiona sobre la “Ceguera Vegetal”. Cheung sugiere que las artes escénicas podrían ser justamente lo que necesitamos para desacelerar un poco y comenzar a apreciar la vida vegetal que nos rodea. 👓 🌱

Role-Playing Queer Assemblages Amidst Capitalist Ruins - Edge Effects Ecologically inspired role-playing game Assemblages is a meditation on extinction, grief, and collaborative, queer survival.

Today on Edge Effects, @natmesnard.bsky.social reflects on their new table top role-playing game Assemblages: the strange creatures players create for its imaginary multispecies universe and the meditation they elicit on extinction, grief, and collaborative, queer survival in the Anthropocene. ♟️🍄

Wind Turbine Elegy An elegiac poem from the perspective of a wind turbine at Zumwalt Acres, a regenerative farm in rural Illinois.

Today on Edge Effects, Anya Kaplan-Harnett imagines the future from the perspective of a wind turbine. From its high vantage point over rural Illinois, the turbine bears witness to centuries of ecological and social change. 🪁🕰

Squished Bugs and the Sticky Questions of Fieldwork - Edge Effects Squished bugs tell us about the ethics and praxis of producing knowledge and imagining alternative multispecies relations.

Today on Edge Effects, Anissa Bejaoui peers into the smudged lens through which many of us see the multispecies world. The insect carcasses of windshield graveyards have a lot to tell us about the politics of care, the ethics of knowledge production, and the praxis of conservation. 🪰🧡

Hoy, en el podcast Edge Effects, la exeditora jefe Bri Meyer conversa con la escritora y diseñadora @brebec.bsky.social sobre sus relatos y sus temas de género y destrucción ambiental. ¡Nuestro primer episodio bilingüe es todo lo que esperábamos y mucho más! 🔪📚

Dark Fiction, Sinister Reality: A Conversation with Brenda Becette Brenda Becette talks about the role of fiction in a our dystopic reality. Becette's short stories avenges women, children, and environment.

Today on the Edge Effects podcast, former managing editor Bri Meyer talks with writer and designer @brebec.bsky.social about her short stories and their themes of gender and environmental destruction. Our first ever bilingual episode is everything we hoped it would be and more! 🔪📚

Happy Translation Tuesday! Today on Edge Effects, Nicolás Felipe Rueda Rey and Tomás Pino translate
@monikaszuba.bsky.social's essay on deep time and the politics of decay. Can we grasp geologic change and plastic waste in our short lifespans?

El Asunto del Tiempo Monika Szuba pregunta cómo los humanos lidian con el tiempo profundo a través del examen de la vida fosilizada, la vida contemporánea y la vida sintética.

¡Feliz martes de traducción! Hoy en Edge Effects, Nicolás Felipe Rueda Rey y Tomás Pino traducen el ensayo de
@monikaszuba.bsky.social sobre el tiempo profundo y las políticas de la descomposición. ¿Podemos comprender el cambio geológico y los residuos plásticos en nuestra corta vida? 🦴⏳

Happy Translation Tuesday! Today on Edge Effects, Nicolás Rueda Rey and Tomás Pino translate @monikaszuba.bsky.social's essay on deep time and the politics of decay. Can we understand geological change and plastic waste in our short lifespan?

Cyborg Horses, Urban Growth and the Changing Nature of Labor Archives from Madison, Wisconsin show the role of mechanized horses, or equine "cyborg" labor, in the growth of U.S. cities.

Today on Edge Effects, former managing editor Bri Meyer explores the multispecies assemblages that built U.S. cities: how horses were mechanized to perform "cyborg" labor, how these multispecies relationships changed in the automobile era, and the lasting equine footprints in Madison, WI. 🐴🤖

Visuals and Verse Across Borders Photography of street art across the Americas inspires ekphrastic poems and translations in this unique, cross-national collaboration.

Today on Edge Effects, poet Ann Fisher-Wirth collaborates with photographer Wilfried Raussert and a team of translators led by Sarli Mercado and @salianoche.bsky.social. This novel "gathering of voices" explores the interconnectedness of people and nature in urban environments. 🎨 📷

Snapshots of the Anthropocene in Iran These photographers capture the complex layers of memory, ecological change, identity, and diaspora in the contemporary landscape of Iran.

Today on Edge Effects, Angelica Modabber discusses her exhibition, "Water and Oil." Through stunning photographs of peripheral spaces and faces, she explores the topography of memory in Iran: how ecological change, exile, and diaspora is ossified in the land and its inhabitants. 👣 📷

Choose your next read/watch from the favorites of these brilliant thinkers on env. futures and futurity: @sgallini.bsky.social @jessicahurley.bsky.social @ceirr.bsky.social @scobrien.bsky.social @jpietruska.bsky.social Leida Fernández Prieto & Michael Rawson 🫶

Faculty Recommendations: Environmental Futures and Futurity Faculty recommend books, films, and exhibits that critically examine the construction, utility, and politics of environmental futures.

Today on Edge Effects, scholars from a range of disciplines share books/films they are most excited to teach this year on environmental futures and futurity. Their gift for our present, these recommendations span from science fiction to documentary, speculative poetry to historical exhibit. 📚💭

Knowledge Politics and the Making of Indian Environmental History: A Conversation with Ramachandra Guha - Edge Effects Ramachandra Guha discusses his new book, Speaking with Nature (2024), and the history of environmental thought in India.

Today on the Edge Effects podcast, Laleh Ahmad speaks with Ramachandra Guha about his new book, Speaking with Nature (2024). They explore how identity and knowledge politics shape environmentalism and environmental history in India and around the world. 🇮🇳☀️ #envhum #envhist

Do Cows Appreciate Poetry? And Other Musings On Our Bovine Friends These poetic fieldnotes on befriending feedlot cattle reflect on our broken food system and life under constraint.

Today on Edge Effects, Mia Werger's poetic fieldnotes and stunning drawings bring a powerful conclusion to our Companion Species series. While befriending feedlot cattle, Werger reflects on the more-than-human experience, surviving amidst hopelessness, and dreaming of a free tomorrow. 🐄🖤

Humanizing Migrants and Miners of Southern Africa - Edge Effects This multimedia exhibit aims to humanize the stories of migrant mining workers of Southern Africa using archives and art.

Today on Edge Effects, Christopher Conz and Christina Balch mesh archival documents with art to humanize the migrant mining workers of southern Africa. Their exhibit draws attention to the systems of extractive capitalism that demonize migrants around the world. 📜🎨

Is Seasteading Another Word for Colonialism? Libertarian's interest in seasteading parallels nineteenth century oceanic colonialism, as represented by Robert Stevenson’s The Ebb-Tide.

Today on Edge Effects, @poisoniv3y.bsky.social draws parallels between contemporary libertarian visions and oceanic colonialism of the 19th century. Seasteading may seem like futuristic science fiction, but Robert Stevenson's The Ebb-Tide offers grave warnings about how this old idea plays out. 🛳️🏖️

Benjamin Chin-Hung Kao is a Ph.D. student in Geography from Brazil and Taiwan at the UW-Madison. Kao’s doctoral project explores Transpacific settler colonial geographies of Pokémon and its worlds. 🐻 Read his full essay here: edgeeffects.net/bears-in-jap...

The bears of popular Japanese-based video games, in particular, animate contemporary colonialism.

"Video games invite players to reenact the process of erasure through play. By simulating colonial history, players become active participants in its present."

"Bear-related products are not a celebration of Ainu identity. Rather, the commercialization of Indigenous imagery facilitates the transformation of Ainu Lands into Hokkaido: culturally and economically."

The Indigenous Ainu people of Japan are imbued by artists and scholars "with bear-like characteristics, like hairiness, to emphasize their wildness. ... Western scholars have characterized Ainu as of the wild and threat to the wild, both bear-like and enemy to bears."