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Short abstract:

We use monarch butterflies to understand how a species can serve as a carrier of meaning for human views about the environment, food systems, and patterns of global change. Monarch butterflies stand in for human concerns and desires about our place in a complex and ever changing world.

Long abstract:

The monarch is a large, colorful, and well known butterfly species in North America, known to many for its presence in backyards and gardens, its ubiquity in advertising and other media, and its migratory behavior, traveling across thousands of miles each year. Children rear monarchs in elementary school as a way to learn about the life cycle, and many North Americans now plant milkweed—which is the only plant that monarch larvae eat—to provide food and habitat for the species. As symbols of ecology, rebirth, and migration, monarch butterflies stand in for human concerns and desires about our place in a complex and ever changing world and our hopes and fears about the future.

We use monarch butterflies as a case study to understand how a species can serve as a potent carrier of meaning for human views about the environment, food systems, and patterns of global change. Following the work of Adloff & Neckel (2019) and other scholars who trace the creation and influence of narratives, we explore stories about the monarch butterfly in two contemporary contexts where the species is a symbol of concern and action over environmental degradation: agricultural biotechnology and the climate crisis. We use data from media content and interviews to support our analysis, arguing that butterflies provide means for a wide range of human actors to both express fear and concern as well as inspire a sense of responsibility and action.

Adloff and Neckel (2019). “Futures of sustainability as modernization, transformation, and control. Sustainability Science.