Can we imagine alternative ways of keeping threatened species’ knowledge?
Shared by MIRIAM POTTS
Can we imagine alternative ways of keeping threatened species’ knowledge? The instability of current times calls us to reimagine relations with other species. Inspired by the Camille stories (Haraway 2016), here an alternative future is imagined where the critically threatened migratory parrot, Neophema Chrysogaster‘s stories could lead us towards a hopeful future of ‘multispecies flourishing’ (Haraway 2016).
Today Chrysogaster and I fly from the mainland to Tasmania for surgery. For many years we lived as companions (Haraway 2003), becoming attuned to each other through ‘purposeful attentiveness and responsiveness’ (van Dooren & Bird Rose 2016). Now Chrysogaster is nearing the end of her short life and needs my cells to sustain her. On the flight she identifies landmarks where the plane deviates from her ancestors’ preferred route (Wahlquist 2018).
Surgery will fuse us together into a bird/machine/human hybrid. Then Chrysogaster’s long-admired beak will translate her precious stories into many species’ languages. Preserving Chrysogaster’s stories is one way of witnessing a dying way of life.
This microblog is the second in a conversation between Miriam Potts and Rebecca Ream.
Image: Miriam Potts (2018-2019). Chrysogaster’s flight. Digital collage from photograph & drawing, dimensions variable.
References
van Dooren, T. & Bird Rose, D. (2016). Lively Ethography: Storying Animist Worlds. Environmental Humanities 8(1), 77-94.
Haraway, D. J. (2003). The companion species manifesto: Dogs, people, and significant otherness (Vol. 1). Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.
Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press.
Wahlquist, C. (2018, September 22). Private plane to fly endangered orange-bellied parrots for summer sojourn. The Guardian (Australia).