Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article underscores sites of Black and Indigenous ecological failure to draw attention to the limits of figuring ideal subjects on the “ecological field” as stewards of, laborers on, and ultimately masters of, the earth. I consider depictions of errant ecological comportment to render other kinds of orientations—boredom, distraction, orgasmic submission, grief—plausible and necessary for developing and honing an ecological ethic. What is often rendered implausible or undesirable might also contain the potential to stave off the impulse to reproduce humanisms that require mastery over the earth. To better pursue failure or an inability to achieve appropriate attunement with the ecological, I focus on a Black fat femme falling from a tree and an Anishinaabeg youth lying on the ground and looking up at a tree. These errant bodies function as sites of friction that trouble old and new materialisms that continue to shape ecological thought and subjectivity.
Source: Genealogy
Author: Tiffany Lethabo King
Institution: University of Virginia
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,689
OpenAlex ID: W7128916657
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