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Contribution short abstract:

This contribution to the round table discussion introduces the lionfish, pterois miles, as a jester whose story can help us understand the workings of contemporary (and past) risk discourses and formulate anthropological critiques of them.

Contribution long abstract:

Risk refers to modes of positional reasoning with uncertainty and perceived danger that are deeply embedded in societal power relations, cultural beliefs, and political and economic trajectories, as Mary Douglas diligently drew out in her seminal writings on the matter. Many contemporary risk discourses and policies circulate globally, claiming a universality that is unjustified and effectively covers up exclusions, essentialization, interests and responsibilities.

In search of contemporary mythologies that could help us grasp and trace these circulations, we introduce the lionfish, pterois miles, as a jester whose story holds up a critical mirror to a variety of moralizing risk narratives that make sense of global connectivities and ideologies of entitlement in times of the climatic crisis.

Thanks to international pet trade, multiplying hurricane incidents, and to global containership mobilities, in the past decade different populations of lionfish across the globe happened to dwell in new habitats and multiply significantly more than before. Meanwhile, as a result, researchers, politicians, local populations, tourists, and even AI have been activated to work together against new lionfish populations which have been classified as invasive species.

The contribution to the roundtable debate takes the story of the lionfish as a teacher and starting point for further reflection and critique of contemporary risk reasoning, addressing the stickiness of risk, questions about "whose existential risk”, hegemonic categories of uncertainty and danger, the commoditization of new uncertainties, and the entitlement implicit in employing risk reasoning.