User:Scbloom/sandbox

Original:

Queer ecology is a broad interdisciplinary subject within the environmental humanities most noticeably combining the fields of queer theory and ecology. Through a number of various methods, queer ecology generally aims to deconstruct heterosexist notions that define the relationship between sexuality and nature.

Scholarship has recently attempted to organize queer ecology’s discursive tendencies into structured genealogies. The seminal anthology Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire (2010) summarizes queer ecology into three distinct fields of study: “investigations of the ‘sexuality’ of nature, the intersections between queer and ecological infections of bio/politics (including spatial politics), and the queering of environmental affect, ethics, and desire.”[10]

Copyedited:

Queer Ecology is a subject within the environmental humanities that ____________(temporarily blank)______________. Queer Ecology aims to deconstruct heterosexist notions that define the relationship between nature and sexuality.

The seminal anthology Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire (2010) divides queer ecology into three distinct fields of study: the sexuality of nature, queer and ecological influences on politics, spatial politics, and biopolitics, and “the queering of environmental affect, ethics, and desire.”

Justification for copyedits/Plan of action:

In the first paragraph, I deleted a few vague phrases that made the paragraph harder to understand and much wordier. For example, “broad” and “Through a number of various methods” add no valuable information to the paragraph, and therefore should be removed. I also removed the word “interdisciplinary,” as it seemed somewhat obvious, especially since the sentence will inform the reader that queer ecology stems from a combination of different disciplines, which conveys the interdisciplinary nature of the subject without explicitly stating it. Most noticeably, I deleted the provided definition for queer ecology. The definition was inaccurate, and while I feel I have done insufficient research to provide a new definition, I am aware that a new one is necessary. After completing my research and discussing my findings with my group members, a new definition will be written. In the second paragraph, I deleted “Scholarship has recently attempted to organize queer ecology’s discursive tendencies into structured genealogies.” This sentence was dense and unhelpful. “Scholarship” was a vague subject for the sentence, and using it made a bold claim about the nature of scholarship and academia, as it implied the general direction of all scholars (even though it only cites one author). I also found the phrases “discursive tendencies” and “structured genealogies” to be dense and unhelpful. It seemed irrelevant to the reader how the information is organized and why. I believe the article should simply focus on conveying the information to the reader. The quote used went on for far too long, and I paraphrased the first two items in the list to break up the quote and make the ideas easier to understand. I left the final item as a quote, as I felt the original wording was succinct.

For the rest of the article, I anticipate that the majority of my edits will be adding more information to the article since it is so short. While the article states the definition of queer ecology as “a broad interdisciplinary subject within the environmental humanities most noticeably combining the fields of queer theory and ecology,” I hope that we will be able to say more than that. It would be helpful to understand the origins of this movement, as well as modern scholars and authors that work within the field of queer ecology. Understanding the modern use for this idea could make it easier to understand the significance of queer ecology. From the research I have done, it seems like queer ecology is heavily rooted in both research and personal experience, neither of which are well represented by the Wikipedia page in its current state. I hope to cite both scientific sources as well as an academic paper I have found about queer ecology’s presence in domestic relationships, specifically the relationships between women and their cats. I will add information about queer ecology from the perspective of this article, as well as from the perspective of economics and theater. I imagine the concept of heteronormativity will frequently appear in the information added to the article. Should this term be defined within the Queer Ecology Wikipedia page, or is linking the Heteronormativity Wikipedia page enough? Will this definition strengthen the page or distract from its focus? Similarly, should I define terms such as “postcolonial,” or even “feminism?”

Articles I plan to use:


 * Heteronormativity without Nature: Toward a Queer     Ecology
 * queer ecologies of home: heteronormativity, speciesism, and the strange intimacies of crazy cat     ladies
 * The question of subjectivity in three emerging feminist science studies frameworks: Feminist     postcolonial science studies, new feminist materialisms, and queer      ecologies
 * Economics Christine Bauhardt- Gale Virtual Reference Library
 * Theater and Performance Carina Bartleet- Gale Virtual Reference Library
 * Water Astrida Neimanis- Gale Virtual Reference Library
 * Article Summaries/Info:
 * queer ecologies of home: heteronormativity, speciesism, and the strange intimacies of crazy cat ladies
 * Explains the domestic perspective on queer ecology. In the home, “love, kinship, gender, sexuality, humanity, and animality” facilitate a space for intimacy between people and their animals. Heteronormativity is a phenomenon that exclusively normalizes love between human men and women, marginalizing all other types of relationships. This phenomenon not only contributes to homophobia and erasure, but also to speciesism and exploitation of the nonhuman. Traditionally, the home is a proponent for heteropatriarchy and speciesism. Queer ecology looks into humans as sexualized, gendered beings and their relationships with other entities. These entities may be organisms within or outside of their species, experiences, forces, or sensations. This includes the relationship between humans and their pets, and the inequalities perpetuated by domestic subjectivity. Will McKeithen discusses the heterosexist expectations of the domestic sphere relating to judgement of the stereotypical “crazy cat lady.” McKeithen argues that the “crazy cat lady” disrupts the heteronormative expectation that a woman’s domestic companion and greatest love should be the figure of a male, human husband by replacing this husband figure with cats. The love shared between a person and their can reinforce the heteronuclear imagining of the home through speciesist inequalities, the love between a “crazy cat lady” and her cats can deconstruct this imagining by fostering a queer ecology.
 * Premodern women with a close relationship with animals were persecuted for bestiality and witchcraft, and while modern society has normalized specific instances of interspecies love through human-pet relationships within the realm of heteronormative domesticity, the stigma and hatred surrounding women-animal relationship perseveres. This stigma, rooted in a history of accusations of bestiality, marks a distinction between “cat lady” and “crazy cat lady.” The former, falling into the under the umbrella of accepted human-pet love, the latter, a space unaccepted by heteropatriarchal norms, also known as a “queer ecology.” In this way, the “crazy cat lady” reimagines the home as a queer ecology by accepting their cats as legitimate companions in ways that do not fit under heteronormative domesticity. The queer ecology of a crazy cat lady’s home is facilitated through multispecies intimacies and house making and the lack of a prominent, human male figure. The glaring lack of a heterosexual couple and the prominence of a non-human species creates the queerness of this ecology.
 * The question of subjectivity in three emerging feminist science studies frameworks: Feminist postcolonial science studies, new feminist materialisms, and queer ecologies
 * Queer ecology challenges the divide between species (specifically between human and non-human species). Queer ecology also challenges the accepted insights as to what organisms, species, and individuals possess agency and count as a subject. This pushes “the boundaries of subject-object dichotomizations and strive for greater inclusivity, responding to long standing demands that natural and social sciences end their exceptionalism assumptions about the objects of their studies” Queer ecology challenges heteronormativity surrounding nature and the idea that nature an culture can be separated by combining environmentalism and queer theory and promoting an integration of queerness into environmental movements.
 * Traditionally, the health of ecosystems could be indicated by heteronormativity, while queer ecology works to dispel this understanding. Queer ecology challenges anthropocentrism, human exceptionalism, the nature/culture binary as well as what is understood as “natural” and “normal.” It for inclusion and celebration for historically marginalized groups and reveals the way in which people and nature have been exploited to control hegemonic society and for profit by those in power
 * Economics Christine Bauhardt- Gale Virtual Reference Library
 * QE challenges the notion that a gender binary and a heterosexual approach to social reproduction is “natural” and “normal.” As a result, the “natural order” and traditional division of labor is challenged. From a scientific perspective, queer ecology studies queerness in nature (homosexual, bisexual, and transgender behavior in nonhuman animals)
 * Queer ecology redefines motherhood by dissolving the link between heterosexual motherhood and the female body, reframes it as a link between procreative potential of a female body and presumed responsibility and societal pressure for a role in social reproduction
 * Anti-capitalist feminism uses ideas from queer ecology. Social reproduction/childcare are the center of feminist economics. Anti-capitalist feminists use queer ecology to disentangle the female body and its reproductive potential from a mandatory role is social reproduction and child care. Queer Ecology points out that “natural” often means “procreative,” “two-gendered,” and “heterosexual” and challenges this notion.
 * Theater and Performance Carina Bartleet- Gale Virtual Reference Library
 * Contemporary plays and theater take a performative approach to deconstructing traditional notions of sexual politics. Theater provides an arena in which an audience can sit and watch a new world without the constructed binaries and heteronormativity of the world outside of the play. Theater has the ability to honor the interdependence of people and non-human animals.
 * Theater can portray a hypothetical society in which radical coexistence may look like, both by blurring the lines of a binary conception of gender and heteronormativity as well as challenging “natural” hierarchies, and queer ecology in theater can challenge the notion that the earth is nonliving
 * Water Astrida Neimanis- Gale Virtual Reference Library
 * Queer ecology brings together ecological and social justice concerns. Heteronormative and homophobic values are often understood as “natural,” but QE disrupts this understanding. Water is used to articulate queer justice politics both in critical animal studies and environmental justice
 * The “Aquatic Ape Theory” is an example of queer ecology’s impact on science and social understanding of “human.” The Aquatic Ape Theory proposes that human ancestors were costal dwelling apes. This idea came from a willingness to reject traditional notions of gender and humanness and challenged conventional theories of human evolution.
 * Water is traditionally tethered to femininity, making this natural process complicit in constructing a heteropatriarchal understanding of women’s bodies. However, reframing the way we look at the female relationship with water and new ways of looking at embodiment, ethics, subjectivity, and acquired knowledge, making the union between females and water liberating.