Introduction

Abstract

This collection derives from an ongoing experiment in thinking through and with the potential epistemic insurgency presented by our loose collective’s working terminology, “Black ecologies.” This term moves from the resonances between the editors’ own research in New Orleans, Puerto Rico, and Virginia, respectively. Each of us considers from our different vantages the ecological consequences of slavery and its afterlives in the enduring regime of extractivism and disposability shaping Black communities in the Diaspora. This resonance has inspired us to collaborate in various formations, including a virtual dialogue about the environment for the People’s Strike organization in July 2021, the Black Ecologies series at Black Perspectives, the virtual gathering hosted by the Black Ecologies Initiative at Arizona State University in Spring 2022, “Making Livable Worlds” (following co-editor Hilda Lloréns’ monograph title), and a zine publication, which have together added further integrity, meaning, and possibilities for thinking with this formulation outside a restrictive or proprietary vision for its potential.

When the window is a mirror: how do dominant theories limit our understanding of nature? (ESA 2023 INS23)

“…Drawing from allied disciplines and subdisciplines such as Black ecologies (Hare 1970, Hosbey et al. 2022), queer ecology (Mortimer‐Sandilands and Erickson 2010), and Indigenous ecology (Reo and Ogden 2018, Hart‐Fredeluces et al. 2021), in addition to cross‐disciplinary work with art, history, and philosophy, can inspire new frames and conceptualizations through which to understand nature.…”

“…Drawing from allied disciplines and subdisciplines such as Black ecologies (Hare 1970, Hosbey et al 2022, queer ecology (Mortimer-Sandilands and Erickson 2010), and Indigenous ecology (Reo andOgden 2018, Hart-Fredeluces et al 2021), in addition to cross-disciplinary work with art, history, and philosophy, can inspire new frames and conceptualizations through which to understand nature. Whether simplifying assumptions are maintained by colonial ideologies, historical convention, or sheer convenience, leaving our assumptions unexamined limits our understanding of nature in its expansive possibilities.…”