Healing histories of division, racialization, and extinction, ft. Sadiah Qureshi
How are frameworks of 'conservation' limiting?
Dear Green Dreamer,
I always feel drawn to conversations that invite us to look critically at and beyond divides, separation, and reductionism, and this new episode was certainly one of those!
In the next episode publishing in mid-October, we will be sharing a hard-hitting discussion with second-time guest Nick Estes on moving beyond electoral politics.
Finally, I will be hosting a live undercurrents Zoom gathering for Green Dreamer's Patreon members and supporting subscribers to my Substack newsletter, UPROOTED, around the next full moon on October 19th ~ noon Pacific Time (exact time TBC). I will share the meeting link in the next Patreon / UPROOTED post, and I would love to have tea, release, and dream with you there!
Thank you for all that you continue to do,
with lightness, kamea
“Conservation is obsessed with these singular ways of recognizing species, but almost completely decontextualized from their environments.” – Sadiah Qureshi
In our latest episode, Sadiah Qureshi invites us to unravel histories of science, race, and empire to understand the social dynamics that we have inherited in the present. How do we begin to heal from constructs of division and racialization that have led to real-life consequences and systemic injustices for so many?
Join us as we explore how social contexts influence how scientific knowledge is shaped, the presumptions underlying “conservation” and “de-extinction” projects to interrogate, and more.
View the episode transcript and references here, and dive into the extended version of this conversation via our Patreon here.
Sadiah closes out with…
A recommendation: “One of the books that was really transformative [for me] was reading Ned Blackhawk's Violence Over the Land. He has just come out with his book, The Rediscovery of America.
One of the reasons I admire his work so much was, I think that's a fantastic example of somebody actually completely and utterly rewriting whole swathes of American history and going ahead and showing what we can achieve as a result.
I think there are lots of people, and I say this as a professional historian, that can sit around worrying, where do we go from here? How do we do? How can we do better?
But I think his books have been an extraordinary example of somebody acting to create beautifully reimagined ways of thinking about these histories that are extraordinarily powerful.”
And some words of guidance…
“We need to rethink our politics of crisis and go beyond that to create an ethics of care and love.”
Professor Sadiah Qureshi is a historian of science, race, and empire, and the author of Peoples on Parade. She currently holds a Chair in Modern British History at the University of Manchester. Her book Vanished, on histories of extinction, will be out with Penguin Random House in 2025.
What inspirations or curiosities are still lingering with you from this episode?
Green Dreamer Planners
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