Send message to Author

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.