Towards a Low-Trophic Theory in Feminist Posthumanities : Staying with Environmental Violence, Ecological Grief and the Trouble of Consumption

• Violent but slow changes to marine climates and blue biodiversity, to warming oceans and coastal areas have been understood as nested problems in need of increased scientific and technological solutions. Instead, this chapter begins from the position that these interlinked problems of human environmental impact on oceans and coastal areas require connected, affective and cultural studies-informed approaches of more-than-human arts (posthumanities put to practice) to complement scientific insight on how to consume better with the sea. Human-induced impacts range from ocean warming and acidification, loss of biodiversity, eutrophication and marine pollution to local degradation of coastal environments and habitats. In order to deal with the nested challenges of such oceanic environmental violence in terms of consumption and grief, we propose to show four cases of coastal and marine slow violence from our Scandinavian “backyards” with the purpose to story exposures and provide counter-narratives on how to reinvent our consumerist ocean imaginary. From diverse locations in the field and in research, we have developed what is here referred to as “low trophic theory”, a situated local stance that attends to entanglements of cultural theory, food practice, affect and grief, violence, more-than-human humanities, multispecies ethics, and the oceanic consumer imaginary. We combine field-philosophical case studies with insights from marine science, eco-art and cultural practices in the Baltic and North Sea region. In the process, we develop analytical notions for the practices and theories of feminist posthumanities. Here in particular as targeted arts of learning to live and die, consume less violently, and to grieve on a damaged blue planet. 

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Annan humaniora -- Övrig annan humaniora (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Other Humanities -- Other Humanities not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Annan humaniora -- Kulturstudier (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Other Humanities -- Cultural Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Genusstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Gender Studies (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi -- Teknikhistoria (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology -- History of Technology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

Keyword

low trophic theory

consumption

eco-grief

feminist posthumanities

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kap (subject category)