By Intern – Luke Maynard
Happy June Sea Watchers! It’s Pride Month, and to celebrate, I thought I would write a brief blog about queer ecology, looking particularly at the ways that queer identities and nature can interact and what we can learn about nature, and humans, by ‘queering’ up our understanding of the world.
Whilst often used to discuss gender and sexuality, queer theory more broadly refers to the challenging of traditional ideas and norms, particularly those that marginalize certain groups or discredit ways of thinking. When applied to the natural world, the field of queer ecology was born! Notarized by Catriona Sandilands, queer ecology rejects interpretations of the natural world that include heteronormativity, cisgender ideals and anthropocentrism (the notion that humans are in some way unique or superior), instead focusing on an unbiased understanding of the diversity of identities seen in nature. In addition, queer ecology examines issues of justice, colonization and marginalization through an ecological perspective.
Our cultural norms can greatly influence our interpretation of the natural world, and there are numerous examples where heteronormative ideas have shaped, and even undermined, our understanding of the natural world. One well-known example is Dr. George Murray Levick R.N’s accounts of Adelie penguin’s sexual behaviour on his Arctic Expedition in 1910. These were not included in the official expedition reports due to their aberrant and shocking nature, with only 100 copies published despite them being “accurate, valid and, with the benefit of hindsight, deserving of publication”. In this case, scientific insight was lost due to the incongruency of the natural world with notions of goodness in contemporary society, with scientific observations being omitted as a result.
When we challenge these traditional ways of interpreting the world, the natural world often surprises us with its diversity and can even help us to understand the complexities of sex and gender within humans. For example, in the clownfish, social hierarchy plays a determining role in the sex of each clownfish. The largest, most dominant fish is the female’ with the breeding male just below the female within the group hierarchy and an all-male rest of the group. If the female disappears, the breeding male will undergo a sex change to assume the role of the dominant female.
We also see behaviour that challenges classical ecological understanding in bottlenose dolphins, an animal that Sea Watch Foundation studies closely! Bottlenose dolphins are one of few mammals known to form close male-male cooperative relationships within social groups. We’ve even identified several strong male pair bonds in the semi-resident population here in New Quay, including a strong connection between Frodo and Dumbledore. These relationships challenge held notions of male-male competition and kinship-dependent cooperation within animals, as these bonds are the strongest social bonds formed by bottlenose dolphins and are unrelated to kinship.
Queer ecology emphasises consideration of behaviours like those of the clownfish and the bottlenose dolphins, to recognise them as integral to the identity of these organisms, rather than anomalous. A ‘queer’ perspective can therefore help us to look beyond commonly held notions and expectations to examine the complexities and beauty of the world in more vivid detail. Furthermore, by considering humans as part of, rather than distinct from, nature, these findings also have relevance to the diversity of queer ways of life experienced by humans and can help us to think more compassionately and with greater understanding to all that identify outside of the hetero- and cisgender norms. Maybe then, this Pride Month and beyond, we should all try being a bit queerer in our approach to the world!
This blog post was heavily inspired by an excellent article by Nat Knight about this topic, which can be found here: Queer ecology, LGBTQ+ liberation and conservation | Surrey Wildlife Trust
Bibliography
Mortimer-Sandilands, Catriona; Erickson, Bruce; Mortimer-Sandilands, Catriona; Erickson, Bruce (2010). Queer ecologies : sex, nature, politics, desire. Bloomington, Ind. ISBN 9780253004741. OCLC 670429594.
Queer ecology, LGBTQ+ liberation and conservation | Surrey Wildlife Trust and
Alliance membership and kinship in wild male bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) of southeastern Australia (https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2001.1756)!
