Short abstract

Through works of speculative fiction and an STS lens, Monarch butterflies reveal: an entanglement of agencies; the threat (and necessity) of loss; and the complexities of community. They can keep us attuned to the real challenges of our collective existence, but also to the possibilities of change.

Long abstract

The climate crisis is partly one of scale, where humans confront the immensity of change, the specificity of impacts, and the seeming impossibilities of effective individual action (Cohen 2026). How might we grapple with this scale and loss? What opportunities might emerge toward a more collaborative future? We take the monarch butterfly as a space of intersection between our everyday lives and their more global impacts (especially in North America). STS offers an opportunity to create a nuanced understanding of these entities and their roles as not just icons, but as beings with agency - keeping alive the necessity of knowing otherness within the world, even while acknowledging the ways that humans establish conditions of possibility. Through works of speculative fiction and concrete personal interactions, monarch butterflies (as real beings and symbols of climate vulnerability/resilience) can be positioned as revealing:

an entanglement of agencies (where monarchs react to and resist human attempts to shape their existence);

the threat (and necessity) of loss (where monarchs die individually and potentially die off, and where humans must confront their own desire to fully control this process);

and the possibilities of community (where we nonreductively include nonhumans in the “ongoing crafting of lives in common”).

They can keep us attuned to the real challenges of our collective existence, but also to the possibilities of change (Johnston 2019). The complexities of these realities, explored through an STS lens, can promote a meaningful, nuanced understanding of the past, present, and potential futures of this interspecies worldbuilding.