Presentation short abstract

How political ecology has generally evaded the unconscious trouble that sits at the heart of abjection.

Presentation long abstract

Psychoanalyst and feminist philosopher Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection has recently received greater attention in scholarship on the political geographies and ecologies of non-human life. Developed in her canonical book, Powers of Horror, Kristeva’s conceptualizing of abjection as the casting off that which is seen as repulsive, unwanted, and disgusting in the subject—that which is both part and not-part of ourselves—is not new to geography. However, I argue the psychoanalytic primacy of abjection has been largely reduced to a biopolitical reading of abjection through the politics of bordering and exclusion. Lacking a deeper recognition of the abject as a confrontation with psychoanalytic anxiety, fear, and horror, in this paper, I seek to show how contemporary literature in geography and political ecology on ‘abject species’ has generally evaded the meaning and makings of unconscious trouble that sits at the heart of abjection, which is necessary for a richer and truly psychoanalytic development of an abject political ecology. To develop this argument, I will present a psychoanalytic reading of Kudzu (Pueraria montana), the well-known vining plant known colloquially in the United States as the “plant that ate the South.” Drawing on a rich body of geographic and environmental humanities literature on Kudzu and its spread across the US South, I will show how the horror of plant species (re)cast as invasives provide an opportunity for a distinctly psychoanalytic political ecology reading of more-than-human abjection. I conclude with suggestions for an abject political ecology research agenda.