Items

• 
  2020-04-22

  Readying for Invasion: How the rhetoric of “Invasive Species” prepares us to be on the defensive

  This is a picture of Japanese Wineberry, surrounded by Lesser Celadine, a European species of buttercup. Both species are introduced. Lately, I have been taking a lot of walks. Getting out of the home is a luxury, now more than ever. As I walk, I have been trying to better familiarize myself with the world around me. What does it consist of? What do I recognize, what don’t I? What are the flora and fauna I am surrounded by that I fail to give my attention? I have been using the Seek app by iNaturalist to gain a better grasp of these species. What has been most striking, for me are the number of “introduced” species that exist around me. My sister and I have been making pesto out of garlic mustard, an introduced species from Europe. Brought over to be a spice, garlic mustard knows no bounds; now that I have seen it once, I see it everywhere. But we don’t readily recognize many European plants as invasive. From the beloved honey bee, to the seemingly integral “earthworm,” to the iconic Kentucky bluegrass – these species have been naturalized – on our landscapes and in our minds. As Alfred Crosby has pointed out, the introduction of species is key to ecological imperialism. And yet, in popular consciousness, we are relatively comfortable with Europe’s legacy of plants and animals that populate our landscapes. It is currently species from Asia – the Emerald Ash Borer, the stinkbug, the spotted lanternfly – that are branded “invasive,” that are campaigned against, and remarked upon for the havoc they wreak to the environment – especially the European environment that exists within America – when the grapes and stone fruit are eaten by the lanternfly. What happens when the introduced European environment is challenged by the introduced Asian environment? And what are we doing by labeling certain species “invasive” while seeing others as natural, when none of them are native to the land? We are preparing to be on the defensive. We are articulating rhetoric that builds consciousness and prepare us to be readily distrustful of Asia, to see the region as generative of harmful things that threaten the United States. We don’t see invasive species so much as a result of trade, and interaction, but rather as an “invasion” – a takeover – a biotic war waged in flora and fauna. What shifts within us when we recognize our environments as patchworks? As the knitted together histories of migration, immigration, exoticization, xenophobia. When we look at introduced species as memories, do we value them more? Do we begin to see ourselves become medleys of time and space, situated in the histories of other people’s choices? This is not to advocate on the behalf of introduced species, because I understand they can be particularly damaging to the environment. Rather, I challenge the word choice, and the placement of blame. I argue that understanding our history, and perhaps the ethnobiotic routes of the past, present, and future trajectory of species will help us undo this nationalist rhetoric, that prepares us to be suspicious, prepares us to be on the defensive, prepares us to blame Asia, or specifically China, for a wrongdoing. Perhaps this will allow us to situate the blame of our current crisis on inequalities specific to the U.S., and to failures specific to the state.