Paper short abstract:

We engage with the biological concept of ecotones (i.e., multispecies contact zones along ecological gradients) to understand how different assemblages of biological species have been reshaped through the expansion of capitalist development in the Emerald Triangle of Northern California.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, we engage with the biological concept of ecotones to understand the complex mosaic of community ecologies involving humans and other animal species in the Emerald Triangle of Northern California, which is the largest cannabis-producing area of the United States. Ecotones are where different biological communities, ecosystems, or biotic regions meet. A diverse range of definitions and terms have been used to describe these ecological transitions: borders, transition zones, tension zones, zones of intermingling, zones of transgression, and so forth (Kent et al., 1997). Drawing on Donna Haraway (2007, 2016), we examine social life in these spaces of contact to consider how different assemblages of biological species have been reshaped through the expansion of capitalist development of the Redwood Coast, first through settler colonialism and extractivism, and more recently through the transition from illicit clandestine cannabis grows to large-scale legal enterprises. We consider consequences of multiple divergent land management strategies across the redwood landscape and look to local traditional ecological knowledge of Indigenous nations in the regions for viable solutions to pressing crises. Ultimately, this paper addresses the questions: How has capitalist expansion shaped these multispecies contact zones in the Emerald Triangle? How can we support the capacities for humans to partner with the environment instead of promote extractive relationalities? We consider ecotones to be a generative concept that creates new questions about co-occupation, coexistence, and helps to understand the conditions by which particular human and more-than-human relations become calcified.