Hello! My name is Jane Makela (they/them), and I am an English and Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Studies major at the University of Kansas. The purpose of this blog is to document my academic, artistic, and personal exploration of queer ecology guided in part by Professor Megan Kaminski. As a queer nonbinary artist, I plan to focus on ecological disruptions of binaries and the boundless potential that these disruptions bring about. Much of these posts are informed by class material which will be linked at the bottom of each piece.
In order to define queer ecology, I will first stress what it is not. It is not chemicals in the water turning the frogs gay (despite what Alex Jones may think). It is not linear, limited, divisive, or anthropocentric. It exists, by nature, in opposition to cisnormativity, heteronormativity, sexism, racism, ableism, and all forms of oppression. It is not exclusive or discriminatory, and it does not involve the direct application of human socio-cultural norms onto non-human beings.
Queer ecology is, however, an acknowledgement that queer organisms have always existed, that queer potential is limitless, and that interconnection runs deep and complex like a tangle of intricate roots. In this recognition, it asserts that all forms of oppression intersect to brutalize and delegitimize vulnerable populations. Because of this, queer ecology can be defined by a reconstruction or disidentification with oppressive hegemonies or normatives. It provides a space for all beings deemed futureless, illegitimate, or unsavory, uplifting their existences, experiences, and desires. Queer ecology values difference AND sameness, humans AND nonhumans, culture AND ecology, and more and more beyond that. Through an opposition to limiting binaries and oppressive norms, queer ecology is boundless.
Sources:
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/what-is-queer-ecology
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25704424
Nonbinary Boundlessness 
Leave a comment