Dr Rosamund Portus Rosamund.Portus@uwe.ac.uk
Lecturer in Environmental Management
An ecological whodunit: The story of colony collapse disorder
Portus, Rosamund
Authors
Abstract
As life on Earth becomes increasingly precarious, it becomes ever clearer that, while some nonhuman losses are perceived as tragic and controversial, many more are left to slip away, unnoticed and unmourned. The purpose of this study, then, is to determine what renders a nonhuman animal life as significant and why. Specifically, the story of colony collapse disorder is traced, illustrating how the loss of honeybees became framed as an ecological whodunit. This framing incited widespread interest in and anxiety about the disappearance of honeybees. Moreover, the controversy surrounding colony collapse disorder encouraged the preemptive mourning of honeybees' extinction, a fact which has consequently increased their chances of survival. Therefore, I argue that the stories told about nonhuman animals have influence. This article contributes to literature that recognizes extinction as a distinctly biocultural process, shaped as much by cultural values as it is by scientific fact.
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Jan 31, 2020 |
Online Publication Date | Nov 3, 2020 |
Publication Date | Jun 30, 2023 |
Deposit Date | Mar 1, 2021 |
Publicly Available Date | Jul 7, 2023 |
Journal | Society and Animals |
Print ISSN | 1063-1119 |
Electronic ISSN | 1568-5306 |
Publisher | Brill Academic Publishers |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 31 |
Pages | 242–260 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1163/15685306-BJA10026 |
Keywords | extinction; absence; grief; bees; colony collapse; stories |
Public URL | https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7156680 |
Publisher URL | https://brill.com/view/journals/soan/aop/article-10.1163-15685306-BJA10026/article-10.1163-15685306-BJA10026.xml |
Files
An Ecological Whodunit: The Story of Colony Collapse Disorder
(1.7 Mb)
PDF
Licence
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
You might also like
Parental engagement research report
(2021)
Report
An ecological whodunit: Examining loss and grievability in an age of extinction
(2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Art and ecology: Reshaping environmental crises through creativity
(2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Exploring co-production with young people in challenging the climate crisis
(2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Downloadable Citations
About UWE Bristol Research Repository
Administrator e-mail: repository@uwe.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search