Tag: Multispecies
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Tuberous Entanglements and the Potato Empire
in EssaysTatsiana Shchurko follows potatoes through personal memories and uneven global histories. From the Andes to Belarus, she traces how the potato mediates imperial power while fueling peasant resistance and sustaining everyday life.
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Role-Playing Queer Assemblages Amidst Capitalist Ruins
in EssaysNat Mesnard’s new game, Assemblage, allows players to build and role-play an imaginary multispecies universe. Even more interesting than the creatures themselves: the stunning meditation they elicit on extinction, grief, and collaborative, queer survival in the Anthropocene.
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A Cage of One’s Own? On Interspecies Captive-ation
in EssaysUsing the concept of captivation, Quinn Georgic unpacks human-animal interspecies relations by looking closely at mutual power that binds humans and primates together—from HBO’s CHIMP CRAZY to fieldwork with lemurs.
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My Strange Kinship with a Tick
in EssaysWhat messages are shared through a tick bite? Maxime Fecteau explores his experience with Lyme disease, revealing how an undesired relationship with ticks nonetheless has profound impact on his way of seeing ecological degradation, multispecies kinship, and the Anthropocene.
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Swampy Relations & Imperfect Restoration
in EssaysThere’s a sinking swamp in the middle of Manhattan that has kept a host of species safe for millennia. Nat Xu uses the space and their work in it to reflect on Indigenous stewardship, more-than-human precarity, and restorative conservation as an imperfect practice.
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Love, Violence, & Respect in Animal-Human Companionship
in PoetryCompanionship across species is not always simple, nor always rewarding, but perhaps says something about respect for more-than-human beings. In this poem and short essay, Kelsey Dayle John reflects on how the complex fear of witnessing her two dogs fight shaped her approach to multispecies relations.
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How to Be More Like Biocrusts in Precarious Times
in EssaysLizzie Smith describes the oft-overlooked living skin of the desert: biological soil crusts or “biocrusts.” Biocrust bundles show that deserts are full of life, wonder, and instructions for a more interconnected future.
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Thinking With Animal Companions: A Keynote
in EssaysIn this series keynote, professor emerita and historian Harriet Ritvo sets the stage for further investigation of “companion species.” She introduces the varied threads of animal companionship—from influence and impact to proximal, favored reciprocity.
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The Strange Love of Cuckoos and Currawongs
Kate Judith shares a creative and speculative story through the vertiginous voices of the cuckoo and currawong, which underscore the tension between parasitism and care. The currawong’s caregiving is marked by both sacrifice and survival, while the cuckoo’s actions highlight a demolishing invasive behavior. This form reflects the complex, often painful exchanges that define interspecies…
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2024 Year in Review
in ChecklistsAs we welcome in another new year, Edge Effects editors reflect on ten years of posting and recommend their favorite essays and podcasts from 2024.