Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire

by Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands (Editor), Bruce Erickson

Treating such issues as animal sex, species politics, environmentaljustice, lesbian space and ""gay"" ghettos, AIDS literatures, and queer nationalities, this lively collection asks important questions at the intersections of sexualityand environmental studies. Contributors from a wide range of disciplines present afocused engagement with the critical, philosophical, and political dimensions of sexand nature. These discussions are particularly relevant to current debates in manydisciplines, including environmental studies, queer theory, critical race theory, philosophy, literary criticism, and politics. As a whole, Queer Ecologies stands asa powerful corrective to views that equate ""natural"" with""straight"" while ""queer"" is held to be against nature.

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, Ecology, Theory, Environment, Philosophy, Science

425 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Courtney Kruzan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/4.5 stars: I docked a point or so for the flirtation with trans exclusionary feminism in Chapter 6, instead of the outright rejection of it that should have happened.

I really enjoyed this chunk of theory. As it goes, get ready for some dense and intentional reading. Having a dictionary or Google on standby would come in handy, particularly if you don't have a background in biological sciences. That being said, you absolutely don't have to have a sciences background to digest this.

My favorite chapters were:

ch. 1 "Eluding Capture: the Science, Culture, and Pleasure of 'Queer' Animals."

ch. 7 "Polluted Politics? Confronting Toxic Discourse, Sex Panic, and Eco-normativity

ch. 12 "Melancholy Natures, Queer Ecologies"

[Jessica DeWitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is a must-read seminal text that will challenge your preconceived notions of queerness and unlock new ways of thinking about humanity's relationship to the rest of the natural world.

Read my Twitter thread that highlights key points throughout the text here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/12....

[gnat]

read this for research purposes, it's not the topic I'll ultimately explore but it was an interesting academic read

main takeaways: exploration of some aspects of the intersection between environmental science and queer theory, how scientists/we view things from our cultural context, how some scientific theory is framed from a binary, heteronormative, Western lens. essays span a range of disciplines -- scientific theory, history, philosophy, literary analysis. discusses various marginalised communities and political, social, ethical implications, through lenses such as queer theory and feminism/ecofeminism.

favourite chapters: 1, 2, 7, and 12
the 2nd chapter in particular, written by ladelle mcwhorter, offers a good philosophical perspective about the controversy and origin of species classifications. i really enjoyed the more nuanced conclusion! it especially stood out in comparison to other chapters
(as other reviewers have noted, chapter 6 entertains exclusionist, radfem views. I was also personally not interested in the history it went into, its conclusion was less strong compared to other chapters)

random thoughts: this was a very dense and academic read, I hope it doesn't put me back into a reading slump lol. i learnt a lot from this, it definitely made me think harder about some things. there are some uncomfortable topics, many chapters go into the justifications and history of some traditionalist views in order to make a point against them. they were interesting and i've learnt more, but I'm not well-read enough and i can't treat this as my only viewpoint, so I have to do more readings. (😔 tbr list is so long)
there were also opinions that were too radical for me, so i'm not internalising everything, but it's always interesting to explore different perspectives on assumed universal topics!

OKAY fun stuff!!! there's some poetry in this (env stuff!!) that is really cute (+ learnt more about the history behind the lesbian cottagecore aesthetic - i didn't really get it before), and I learnt about rachel carson and dorothy freeman's "platonic romantic" relationship (which I am absolutely going to read about if I have time). the history of urban parks and philosophy of species classifications also particularly stuck with me

I have like 3 pages of google docs notes and various annotations that I won't be posting lol, this review serves as a small summary for future reference :)

[Isaac Figueroa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading about the different fields of study the critique challenges. At times I felt that some of the topics being discussed were mostly insignificant or that the argument the author attempted to make in order to support their claim was far too much of a stretch that it just lacked any logical correlation (chapters 3 & 11). Also included is a lot of rambling that I found to be a distraction from what the focus of the chapter should have been (according to the intro at least). I personally discovered that I do not care much about the history of some of the topics that are included. It was a good read nonetheless. A lot of research and thought was obviously put into analyzing the essays that are mentioned

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather dense, but has a lot of interesting viewpoints and topics. Chapter 6 comes close to TERF territory, sadly. Lots of good suggested reading in the footnotes.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important collection bringing together queer theory & ecology; as outlined in the introduction, the focus of the essays is queer ecology: “an ongoing relationship between sex and nature that exists institutionally, discursively, scientifically, spatially, politically, poetically, and ethically” [5] as “ideas and practices of nature ... are located in particular productions of sexuality, and sex is ... located in particular formations of nature” [4-5].

I would say that I enjoyed the first section of essays, grouped under the heading “Against Nature? Queer Sex, Queer Animality” as well as the seventh essay on toxicity discourse the most.

As other reviewers have noted, the sixth essay is nowhere near emphatic enough in rejecting transphobia. It is simply not good enough to describe the exclusion of trans women from so-called ‘feminist’ spaces as “generated heated debate within the queer community” [189] and then move on. Queer & feminist perspectives must reject transmisogyny, full stop.

I think this is a good collection overall, though inevitably readers will find some themes more interesting than others. Speaking for myself, I don’t find psychoanalytic analysis of much interest and I’m also not especially interested in analysis of poetry, so the essays in these areas were less thought-provoking to me than the ones more directly focused on, for example, environmentalist political organizing.

Content warnings: queerphobia, transphobia, pandemic/epidemic, environmental devastation / climate change, racism, colonialism

[Juniper Copley-Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant collection of essays on a myriad of topics, that permanently changed my opinion and understanding of all of them.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult to rate because there are some good essays in here (e.g., 1,2, 7,12) but the book would have been better with a wider discussion of queering ecology/science and less academic literature analysis.
Also as other reviewers have noted, chapter 6 did not sufficiently critique the more TERFy movements discussed.

[Cheyenne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Several different essays in here with some good writing. Overall, not the type of reading style I like to read. Many of the essays were too superfluous and not to the point.

[sydney erickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for class. fire.

[Emily Bischoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

took me forever to read but yeah i mean this is the entire foundation of my dissertation. it’s a really good book for any ecologist, queer nature enthusiast, or political ecologist (am i all three?)