Queer Ecologies: The Decolonisation, Deconstruction and Liberation of Nature and Ourselves by Jasmine Isa Qureshi
Jasmine Isa Qureshi (they/she) is a monster...a Muslim...a sister...but also...an interdisciplinary ecologist, marine biologist, social scientist, journalist, writer, systems thinker, experienced facilitator, academic researcher, activist and poet. She loves bugs, being sceptical, scattering herself through questions about everything, and undoing things.
Using these tools, and her lived experiences, particularly in marine science and ecology, she seeks to make it more accessible and fluid to understand and grow within scientific fields and is currently doing this through the lens of queer and decolonial theory and the threads attached to this, and exploring how biology builds our realities.
Queer, as in Liberation
To me, “queering” is the process of undermining.
It is presented as a negative term whenever we encounter undermining, often in the context of belittlement or insult. On a technical level (we will undermine “technical” anything later), the insulting or belittling of a process, interaction, subject, or state is simply the deconstruction of that thing, with the bonus (that “undermining” brings) of ‘de-normalising’ the absolute status that “thing” had previously.
So, “queering” is the process of undermining absolution…?
‘Absolutes’ are the identities of things that stay as they are and are unquestionable in how they exist and interact. A set pathway exists for an ‘absolute’ to travel to reach a goal. They have (mainly) linear pathways and are standard procedure for science and “fact”.
Ecology, in particular, enjoys “absolutes”.
The foundation of most ecological mechanisms, ecological studies and structures - in modern Western science anyway - is a fact.
Facts are often entrenched in absolution—this can often be traced back to efficiency and the idea that systems must be predictable to be stable. A predictable system has an outcome or end goal we can “predict.” Thus, knowing the outcome of a pathway, process, or interaction makes it easier and faster to achieve that outcome—a model most often promoted in a capitalist system.
This is a very basic analogy, of course, but the base system of capitalism is the movement of economic resources via the extraction of those resources. In its global iteration, where resources are extracted from what we call the global south, this becomes part of the system of colonisation and, therefore, imperialism.
Absolute facts work best for “fast growth” because an unquestioned fact can be built upon solidly and without “instability.” Therefore, conclusions can be formed quickly, and new steps of understanding can be built upon these conclusions.
Sounds pretty neat, right?
It might sound that way, but the only thing that maintains this “stability” is constructing a linear pathway—or hierarchy.
Before I ramble on further, I’ll shine a little light on this - the growth I am describing here works in only one direction. Forwards. Or Up. In one lane only. There is only one outcome, or at least very few, and they all align with predictions made via previously tested assumptions (also known as facts). These assumptions are all made (and tested) by a set of people and groups who - due to their privilege in the linear hierarchy they exist within - make these assumptions the “correct” forms of understanding. Therefore, all growth is built in line with the most privileged because linear hierarchies are owned and curated by and towards the elite within that system.
A linear hierarchy is a hierarchy of power in which an individual or group at the top dominates all others within the system, and this power is transferred as we travel down the structure. This system is kept “stable” by a set of identifiers that label some as “better” and some as “lower.” Those who are identified as better are thus more privileged due to the higher access to services within this system because it is better curated to them and their requirements.
For this system to stay in place, these labels must be considered unshakeable and unquestionable. Returning to capitalism's efficiency and absolute facts, linear hierarchies work hand in hand with corporate structures because they are one and the same. Both work off of a model of identifying structures in an absolute fashion and then building a model of control whereby there is no alternative, and the only option for growth is to continue our understanding based on these “facts”.
What does any of this have to do with ecology or queering it?
In simple terms, ecology refers to the relationship between organisms and their environment. In the traditional study of ecology, such organisms of study are explored and understood, operating under fixed biological realities or facts in response to their environmental conditions.
If the process of queering undermines absolutes, we can understand that we are disrupting and deconstructing the idea that a fact is absolute. We are deconstructing the idea that the inbuilt control factors (absolute ideas of “higher” and “lesser”) within a system of hierarchy should be unquestionable. In this case, that system is the study/subject of ecology. Undermining is a process of disruption and deconstruction, divestment, and alternative understanding.
Therefore, going back to ecology, we must also learn where these ideas have stemmed from to build alternative formats going forward (or up). I feel this is essential to the process of queering ecology because it allows us to understand that even though the term “queer ecology” was coined in the 70s and platformed in writing even more recently than that (most famously by Dr Catriona Sandilands), this is simply a conceptualising of a process that has existed for many hundreds of years, far before being understood in the current format it is, within western civilisation and colonialist mechanism.
Beyond Binaries
One of the origins of “queer-ing” ecology is the indigenous-led rebellions against one of the oldest binaries/dualisms imposed en-masse. This is the binary of ‘human vs nature’. This binary underpins many of the systemic injustices in modern society and was birthed fundamentally through colonialist tactics. “Colonialism” is the process of occupation and exploitation. This can occur across many mediums, from physical landscapes to metaphorical mindsets and everything in between and beyond. Colonising and exploiting land for resources required a rift between land and those exploiting it. Again, this simplifies the process, but by understanding and being aware of this, we can then understand how the linear hierarchies I mentioned earlier were created.
Arrival in lands where Indigenous peoples and communities existed in fashions strange to colonialists (i.e. processes of mutual respect - as the land and wildlife are considered an entity worthy of respect, flexible and fluid relationships with nature and wildlife, and the importance of awareness of exploitation, and boundaries set to avoid this occurring, etc.), prompted colonists to impose formats of living that worked better in the capitalism based systems they were using to benefit from; the format of nature being a “resource”.
To do so, set identifiers were (and still are) required, identifiers that suggested humans were “better” than other organisms and placed us at the centre of biological mechanisms and studies. These identifiers project all ideas of how things work onto anything and everything around us—otherwise known as anthropocentrism.
This binary, constructed to exploit natural landscapes and, in turn, people, was the norm and the absolute.
It was, and is, the idea that there is a fundamentally “correct” way of existing, and is determined by those who construct this algorithm and reflects their lived experience, which, when created, was that of patriarchal, heteronormative, conservative Christian-led, able-bodied masculine and male presenting persons. So that “stable, fast growth” I was speaking about earlier…only works in that way for these core identities. This binary and imposed structure has bled into the construction of other systemic injustices such as racism, ableism, and trans/queer/homo-phobia (through the platforming of racist biology and eugenics - which stem from the identifiers used to suggest that other organisms are “lesser” than human animals). Becoming aware of this is so important because biology underpins the policies of our existence in society.
Rebellion against this was the seeding of this undermining. Undermining sets of absolutes underpin a toxic system that isn’t, in fact, any more “real” or “natural” than anything that is invented by human society. Queering ecology is a continuation of this undermining.
Before this next bit, just a heads up that I’m using the binary-centred terminology of “male” and “female”, which simply references an imposed definition of those terms on these non-human organisms. Even if I may disagree with their usage, we are navigating the same system, and sometimes, for accessible mutual understanding, common terms must be used. In this way, I seek to navigate this subject anthropomorphically without centring these definitions as absolute and ultimately hoping to deconstruct them.
Clownfish. You’ve heard of them; you’ve probably seen them. But you may not know how useful they can be in deconstructing toxic mechanisms of assumption in society.
The clownfish belongs to a group of fish known for their sequential hermaphroditism – the process of sex changing sometime during a lifecycle (versus simultaneous hermaphroditism - where fully formed gonads of all sexes are present at birth).
OK, now bear with me here because we'll get very sciency.
These clownfish live in social groups consisting of a dominant female, always the largest in size, surrounded by small males and juveniles. Clownfish species display a strong social hierarchy based on size.
When the dominant female of a family dies, all subordinates seize the opportunity to ascend in rank and grow. The male next largest is poised to become female and rapidly changes sex to assume the vacated position, while the largest "other" fish completes the breeding pair by turning into a mature male in a short time. This ability allows the formation of a new breeding pair, preventing the need for dangerous travel across the reef but requires the presence of subdominant fish to complete the sex change. Shortly after the female is removed, the male, who used to receive orders from the female, now displays aggression and dominance, beginning to court the smaller fish as the female would. The brain mediates these behavioural changes.
This animal's entire biological structure – which we often state for humans is unchangeable - has changed to suit its environmental needs. What I mean here is that whilst much of how we’re thought to think about the biological world is fixed on unchangeable facts through clownfish and many other species, what we can learn is that biology in and of itself is queer. The environment, as such, has a transformational property in creating possibilities for “queering”.
The reproductivity of these fish does not depend on their assigned gender at birth, that the sex and gender are connected but ultimately different, and that a simple switch in hormone levels via brain activity (whilst, of course, not at all simple in practice, but in concept more so) has changed the sexual desire, reproductive capability, and physical body of this animal. Scientific review and method disallowed such a discovery and study to be made for many years before these fish were understood because of how we viewed human gender and sex and projected it onto how we studied these animals (suppression of knowledge and data - which connects to the forced “reality” of societies and that model of “linear hierarchies and stability”).
The arrival of gender as a norm, its assigned set of roles, and the stereotypes of those roles are often assumed to be present in a myriad of animal species. We then understand these animals and their behaviours and interactions based on our mainstream ideologies of gender - this is all anthropocentric thinking. This refers to a tendency to reason about unknown or unfamiliar biological processes or species by using human comparisons. This is tempting not only because it is a by-product of the centring of humans and the placing of ourselves at the top of a hierarchy, but it's also easier and faster.
Thus, the deconstruction of this allows us to question the roles set within society, the absolution of gender, reproductive rights, colonialist imposed ideas of human importance, and many more and instead provides a stepping stone for an alternative system of understanding where we seek to divest from this.
Divesting to Decolonise
How we divest is also essential. As we can see, a fundamental part of “queering” anything is decolonising our ideas of it whilst not getting too attached to the labels provided within Eurocentric structures and learning. Instead, centring queer, global majority perspectives, communities and individuals in this fight to undermine and deconstruct unpicks the linear hierarchical power structure of the elitist, white supremacist thought that imposed these stringent laws in the first place. Indeed, a massive part of the work I do now as an ecologist who “queers” this subject is teaching the decolonising of conservation practice via the platforming and promotion of indigenous-led conservation practices and ancestral learning around ecology and natural history.
Divestment also contains alternative system building, whereupon we deconstruct the entirety of toxic hierarchy, one branch of which is the formats we educate within (swinging back to the colonisation of mindsets) - this means a more community-led, mutual aid-centred approach to teaching ecology and natural history, and learning about it, than the previous “imposeful”, “teacher-knows-best” format, which again rids us of unquestionable absolutes. The injection of creative practices (creative writing, artistry, poetry, fluid mechanisms of exploring linear subjects like science) into ecology is also an essential aspect of “queering”/”undermining”/”decolonising” this subject due to its essential deconstruction of the “perfection” of expertise and scientific thought and method.
There are many and more ways of undermining ecology. Thus, many wonderful people and communities are queering it, and many more ways of divestment construction of alternative systems of growth within and beyond it. What I have presented here is simply a slice, a slice of how ultimately this is about rebellion against an imposed toxicity and hierarchy, and thus within the umbrella of queer ecology, we can and should be attaching elements of anarchy, decolonisation, anti-racism, intersectional learning, awareness and education around oppression of peoples around the globe, and what we should learn from it is that questioning biology and the norms set within ecology is necessary to questioning our realities and ultimately necessary for the liberation of those oppressed within these realities.