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Paper short abstract:

This presentation delves into the vexed socio-political relations between humans and highly mobile mosquitos across Southeast Asia

Paper long abstract:

This presentation delves into the vexed socio-political relations between humans and highly mobile mosquitos. As is particularly the case in Southeast Asia, mosquitos are responsible for thousands of deaths each year, leading them to be labelled as 'pest' and subject to various large-scale programs of eradication. However, these tiny migrant insects are also essential to pollination and as nutrients in terrestrial food webs. As such, their eradication may lead the collapse of whole ecosystems, in what is increasingly being dubbed as the 'insect apocalypse'. Therefore, in this presentation I go beyond common portrays of mosquitos as 'pest' and 'epidemic villains', and the subsequent war-like relations these portrayals engender, to comparatively explore two differing modes for making peace and creating conviviality with these insects across Southeast Asia: from technological visions of altering the biology to domesticate mosquitoes in hypermodern Singapore; to vernacular and conservation practices and policies that are attempting to make peace with both humans and disease bearing insects on the war-torn Myanmar-Thai borderlands.

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Paper short abstract:

Ethnography of an endeavor to defend the sabra from an invading aphid in Israel/Palestine with the help of an immigrant beetle. This contentious effort involving cross-national collaborations, challenging themes of nationality and ecology while reaffirming issues of separation and power relations.

Paper long abstract:

In the era of increased globalization and climate crisis, are required huge and cross-border efforts to eradicate transformations of species or to mitigate their effects. Such efforts can be a fruitful platform for collaborations and coalitions that challenge political, political and cultural separations. However, the practice and implications to deal with them continue to be hotly debated topics.

Despite having been introduced relatively recently from the Americas, the prickly pear (sabra) is viewed, rather ironically, by both Palestinians and Jews in Israel as symbolizing their nativity in the land of Palestine/Israel, respectively. More recently, an aphid (Dactylopius opuntiae) has been causing devastating mortality among prickly pears.

This ethnographic study accompanied a small group of scientists who are trying actively infect all the sabra shrubs in the area with the aphid, but to do so together with the larvae of one of its natural enemies, a small beetle (Hyperaspis) that they imported from Mexico and have acclimatized to the local conditions. This controversial project is being carried out in collaboration (based on personal acquaintances) with scientists from Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, but is also currently provoking great opposition among other scientists and among key organizations and political forces.

Using theoretical approaches such as 'more than human' and 'settler colonialism', this paper examines the sabra rescue project and shows how the project succeeds in challenging perceptions of conservation and development and international boundaries, but it also reinforces previous conceptions of nature and culture, human and non-human, and power relations.

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Paper short abstract:

A mass migration is taking place through the Suez Canal. 350 tropical marine species with roots in the Indian Ocean have travelled north through the Canal. Together with warming sea temperature, they are changing Mediterranean sealife and cultures.

Paper long abstract:

Under the surface of megatankers and shipping, a mass migration is taking place through the Suez Canal. Over time and as a result of both natural change and engineering projects, the Suez Canal has turned into a global highway for sea creature.

Since its opening, more than 350 tropical marine species with roots in the Indian Ocean or the Red Sea have travelled north through the passageway and settled in the Mediterranean Sea. These newcomers have significantly changed Mediterranean sealife and cultures, and their impact will only increase with global warming, damaged ecosystem and the recent widening of the canal. In this talk, I discuss my new research project that explores different afterlives of the Suez Canal. I will outline the larger project to then focus on a range of marine creatures that came with the merging seas. How can parrotfish, prawns and crabs help us scale the afterlife of massive interventions in changing environments? And what can pufferfish and jellyfish teach us about surviving in anthropogenically altered landscapes?

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Paper short abstract:

Pacific oysters have migrated to the Swedish West Coast some 15 years ago because of commercial aquafarming and climate change raising sea temperatures. They are referred to as “invasive foreign species”, but what new relations and changes did they cause in their new more-than-human environment?

Paper long abstract:

Crassostrea gigas or Magallana gigas, also known as Japanese or Pacific oysters, have migrated to the Swedish West Coast some 15 years ago. Reasons for this migration were both outer and inner: human import for commercial aquafarming in Europe, climate change raising sea temperatures, and the constitution of the oysters themselves. In Sweden, they are referred to as “invasive foreign species”, meaning that migration would not have been possible without human help and that they thrive better than some “endemic” species in their new environment, thus potentially threatening the extinction of the latter. But, what changes are the migrant oysters causing to their new ecosystem, and what are their possible futures?

Which new relationships between oysters and groups of humans have come out of this migration? What is the nature of these relationships? What economic and etic rationales do humans express, which new practices and emotions do they display? Which other non-human agents do newcomer oysters relate to in meaningful ways? What is the nature of these relationships? How can we develop the ethnographic emothod to include also the non-human phenomena? And in the end, how do we conceptualize the ethics of migration and survival in a more than human world?

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Paper short abstract:

The presentations aims to describe how Evenki reindeer herders and hunters form partnerships with their neighbours the wolves based on interpersonal relations, mutual learning and acknowledgment of certain established social norms contributing to the creation of joint domestic living-places. Futher it demonstrates, how the changing behaviuor and migrations of wolves challenges these modes of interactions in East Siberia and the Russian Far East.

Paper long abstract:

In this presentation, by exploring Evenki reindeer-herders and hunters’ mutual interactions with wolves, I aim to reveal how the wolf features in the daily lives of Evenki people and vice versa in the dynamically changing socio-environmental contexts of Siberia and the Russian Far East. I demonstrate that the wolf has been one of the most important animals in Evenki social life, morality, economy, and land use. Hence, wolves tend to be perceived by Evenki as non-human persons with their own individualities, potentialities for partnerships, and, often, distinctive characteristics that can be learned by humans through an active process of socialization and rivalry as well as from experiences of sharing the landscapes they inhabit. Thereby I show how Evenki form partnerships with their neighbours the wolves based on interpersonal relations, mutual learning and attunement, and acknowledgment of certain established social norms contributing to the creation of joint domestic living-places. Finally, I describe the contemporary ambiguity Evenki have to deal with in the context of their shifting economic and ecological environment as well as the changing behaviour of wolves.