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Short abstract:

I will examine what the conservation movement and novel de-extinction projects have "made" the idea of extinction into, and explore possibilities of what may come from "unmaking" those conceptions.

Long abstract:

Conservation has historically been centered around the project of preventing the extinction of species (Barrows, 2009). That centering has “made” extinction into a tragedy, a conception that is reinforced by mournful rhetoric that often blames humanity for causing extinction and obligates them to prevent it (Heise, 2016; Louder and Wyborn, 2020). That rhetoric objectifies the loss of more-than-humans for the purpose of human transformation, and precludes other responses to the loss.

Recently, techno-optimistic rhetoric of novel “de-extinction” projects has appeared to discuss extinction differently, including questioning the finality of extinction and humans’ moral responsibilities in responding to or even “atoning” for it (van Dooren and Rose, 2017; Jennings, 2017). However, I argue that de-extinction nonetheless extends the conservation movement’s attempt to “make” the initial extinction event into a tragedy and an object of transformation; the rhetoric of de-extinction draws its emotional power from the idea that bringing back lost species helps “undo the damage” caused by past humans, simplifying extinction into a moral lesson for people today.

Here, I examine how both the rhetoric of conservation and de-extinction have objectified the loss of more-than-humans for the purpose of influencing the public. I will think through how the “making” of this loss has often failed to encourage an ethic of care and reciprocity with nature (Kimmerer, 2015). I will consider how we might “unmake” this idea of extinction solely as tragedy and how doing so may make room for new relationships and responses to the loss of more-than-humans.