ECOLOGY

Ecology is the branch of biology that studies the relations between various organisms as well as the relations between organisms and their environments. Although Ernst Haeckel coined the term “ecology” in the 1860s, writings that observe ecological interconnections, causal relations, and degradation were penned much earlier. Perhaps even more than in other scientific fields, one would be hard pressed to disqualify a staggering wealth of observations – agricultural and forestry manuals, medical texts, the accounts of colonizers, travel writing, nature writing, journals, and memoirs – from being considered part of the history of ecology. An obvious reason for this would be that the concerns of ecology arise from other human practices – including subsistence practices – that directly engage with the natural world. Studies of traditional ecological knowledges (TEK), for example, reveal that many, if not all, cultures produce systematic forms of ecological knowledge suited to each culture’s specific environment, social organization, and perspectives thereon. A systematic understanding of the ecology of a particular place may be provoked by the need or desire to protect that environment. As Richard Grove explains, what are “called conservation practices cannot, in fact, be distinguished clearly from the complex web of economic, religious, and cultural arrangements evolved by a multitude of societies to safeguard and sustain their access to resources” (Grove 1995: 16). Thus there may well be as many ecological “sciences” as there are cultures. Postcolonial science and technology studies also insist upon multiple

traditions of ecological knowledge. By emphasizing scientific traditions other than those of Euro-Americans, postcolonial science studies resists a triumphal narrative of Western rationality (Harding 2008: 130). Postcolonial science studies also stresses how the sciences of Europe have been indebted to indigenous, Asian, African, and Latin American cultures. Thus, in the broadest possible sense, the study of ecology and literature would include all cultures, all time periods, and all sorts of texts, including oral literatures and ceremonies (such as Shalako, the Zuni world renewal ritual). It would draw not only upon the

disciplines of literary studies, ecology, science, and science studies, but also anthropology, sociology, political theory, history, cultural studies, and postcolonial studies. Rather than trying to reference the wealth of texts, criticism, and contexts

worthy of inclusion here, this chapter will discuss a few examples of Englishlanguage literature and literary criticism that pertain to ecology. Two lines of inquiry will shape the chapter. The first gestures toward a central issue within the study of literature and science, namely the relation between literary texts and scientific knowledge, suggesting that, with regard to ecology, literature and science are not always worlds apart. Following from the first, the second line of inquiry examines how laypeople have practiced a kind of ecological science by observing and documenting ecological systems, changes, and harms. Along the way I will introduce a few ecologically oriented literary genres, and I will conclude by discussing how ecocriticism – the ecologically oriented school of literary analysis – can draw upon science and science studies.