3 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Ecology

Ecology has a strange relationship to borders. The idea of “nature” is a border separating those which grow from those we build, something Oxman’s Material Ecology tries to deconstruct (Mazade, 2020). We cross literal borders to get away from the extreme weather outside to the comfort of the air-conditioned inside. Eco-friendly spaces in Bali build borders to keep out the unsightly working class for the comfort of the enlightened whites while they bask in their entitled guilt, safe and sound within those borders. Meanwhile, climate change is a problem that transcends borders, and its impact could likely cause 1.2 billion people to seek refuge beyond their national borders (IEP, 2020)—which will only result in governments erecting stronger border control.

With Morton’s (2010) queer ecological approach, this paper seeks to examine what we mean when we talk about ecology and how there seems to be a massive discrepancy between our sanitised perception of ecology and the messy way it fundamentally shapes our future. It questions the idea of borders and spaces, inside vs outside, assembling vs growing, and the plague of biological reductionism and geographical determinism around the science of ecology. We explore how vastly our struggles for self-determination, anti-capitalism, queer rights, and decolonisation are interconnected at an ontological level. Taking case studies and creative works on the issue of queer ecology across Southeast Asia, this paper seeks to find liberatory ecological knowledge production that fosters new ways of relating to the environment.