Ecofeminism has had a nonlinear developmental path. Although it was celebrated as a potentially revolutionary project in the 1970s, by the time climate change and environmental crises had worked their way into mainstream discourse ecofeminism had become practically unheard of. The purpose of this thesis is to reflect on the failure of early ecofeminism and to explore ecofeminism’s potential as a transformative project of the twenty-first century. This thesis is motivated by my own personal experience of ecofeminism as transformative and also by what I would call a recent resurgence of interest in ecofeminism by young students, budding feminists, and fledgling environmentalists that understand the climate and environmental crises as fundamentally linked to the oppressions of colonial capitalist-patriarchy. Recounting the origin, history, and marginalization of the project of ecofeminism, I explore the rift between materialist and spiritual/cultural approaches to argue that the effectiveness of ecofeminism is dependent upon a collaborative recovery from the damages done by extensive anti-essentialism critiques. The onto-epistemology of our current paradigm— defined by neoliberal capitalism and colonial patriarchy—limits response to the environmental crises of our times to that of incremental policy change that is more symbolic than substantive. I argue that, in order to escape the chains of the neoliberal/capitalist/patriarchal subject that are cast upon us by these predatory onto-epistemologies, we must envisage ways to be human otherwise; in reciprocal relationships with more-than-human nature. As a prefigurative project that centres the more-than-human yet maintains a comprehensive intersectional anti-oppressive framework, a contemporary ‘multispecies ecofeminism’ can endow us with this potentiality. In our times of immense ecological degradation and ‘point-of-no-return’ deadlines, ecofeminism is a needed ‘third story’ that resonates as revolutionary with young scholars of the twenty-first century. / Graduate

Craig Santos Perez's poetic series from Unincorporated Territory describes and decries the U.S. militarization, colonization, and environmental degradation of Guam in the Western Pacific through multilingual, excerpted, and series-long poems. Perez's writing style requires slow, careful reading with translations sometimes appearing on the same page, various pages later, or not at all. I describe this kind of elongated translation as slow translation, recalling translation theorist Michael Cronin's "Slow Language" movement. This thesis invites readers, especially multispecies ethnographers, to slow down the translation of nonhuman species and their stories by paying attention to moments of untranslatability in multispecies literature and interactions. In modeling how to think-with untranslatability, I call upon translation scholars Barbara Cassin and Cronin, who describe untranslatability in temporal and agentic terms, and environmental humanist Donna Haraway, whose tentacular thinking model and multispecies approaches have slowed our tendencies towards linear and assumptive modes of thinking. In conjunction with these thinkers, my multispecies reading of from Unincorporated Territory proposes slow translation as a model for resisting easy or colonizing translations that homogenize the Other. Perez's multilingual, fractured poems create moments of untranslatability, especially when describing nonhuman species or environments, that are difficult to immediately understand due to nontranslations or delayed translations. This thesis pays special attention to such moments as opportunities for slowing down and staying with difference. Thus, moments of untranslatability offer an ethnographic and interactive mode for engaging with difference through slow translation, valuing the process and experience of translation, the agency of the subjects in translation, and the incomprehensibility or unknown nature of the nonhuman and Othered world.

We live in a time marked by ecological precarity and crisis. Critical scholars of the Anthropocene have identified extractivism and its associated ideology of human exceptionalism as driving forces behind these crises. This thesis joins a call to develop naturalcultural theory – ways of conceptualizing the more-than-human world and our place in it as humans that do not rely on longstanding distinctions between “Nature” and “Culture.” Moreover, scholars and activists have clearly outlined the urgent need for us to change the way we live with nonhumans. As a step towards such new ways of living with nonhumans, in this project I study how foragers foster multispecies ethics through their encounters with nonhumans, using multispecies ethnography as my primary methodology. In this thesis, I develop a theoretical framework through which to understand forager-plant interactions, informed by my experiences in the field interviewing and observing foragers as they harvest plants and directly studying the plants that my participants frequently interacted with. I tentatively propose a distinction between extractive and non-extractive approaches to foraging. Overall, I suggest viewing plants and humans as living-persons who are tangled in a field of socioecological relations to one another. Through partial and intermittent encounters, they become contaminated and adopt new habits that affect their future interactions with other living-persons. This has important implications for how we conceive of ethics as only incorporating nonhumans as objects of ethical consideration rather than ethical subjects in their own right.

Approximately 200 people, mostly Dukhas of Tuvan ancestry, live nomadically with reindeer, horses, and dogs as ‘Tsaatans’ in the taiga of northern Mongolia. How do they effectively realize their livelihoods? Does qualifying corporeal manners, or bearings, in which livelihood practices are performed in the moments of actualization offer insight into ways in which longer-term decision-making processes like nomadic settlement and livestock management are embodied? Informed by a phenomenological approach in anthropology during nearly four months of cooperative co-habitation with Tsaatan mentors, I argue that Tsaatans effectively realize livelihood practices as they cheerfully embody poised improvisation and acrobatics in both skillful discernment and movement. Simultaneously anticipating and performing diverse tasks in playful cooperation with friends, family and other animals along nomadic lifestyles in a wilderness habitat involves persistent, sensory-rich, versatile manipulation of environmental materials, as well as extensive geographic knowledge and frequent experiences of risk in remote, rugged terrain and powerful meteorological conditions impossible to completely avoid. These lifestyles catalyze the development of quick-witted and materially sensitive resilience with which people are capable of corresponding with beings, materials, and situations, and thereby of continuing to develop ancestral traditions of reindeer husbandry in a rapidly changing social, economic, technological and geo-political context.

This thesis is concerned with the conditions of generating a livable Karoo landscape and the arts of living on a damaged Karoo veld. It takes place in a context where the anthropogenic influences on land degradation, desertification and biodiversity loss continues to haunt the Karoo in the present. The Karoo is a semi-arid region that spans the interior of South Africa. It is also region that has been subject to ongoing and widespread concern of the impact of overgrazing, threatening the livability of the Karoo landscape. This is a result of human/nonhuman relations that have been grounded in a colonial mastery of the land, whereby the advent of private property regimes, modernist technologies and capitalist extraction has allowed for the land to be cheapened, exhausted and severely degraded in a process of colonial dispossession. This research is a qualitative ethnography interacting with farmers and nonhumans on rangelands in the Great Karoo. This thesis shows how the earlier degradation of the Karoo has demanded farmersto pay attention to the relationalities between ecology and economy, since their economic/ecological survival depends entirely on the ongoing multispecies assemblages of which humans form a part. Infrastructures and technologies have become grounds for new ontological practices of regenerating the Karoo veld. Infrastructures (namely fencing) and sheep are used in ways that mimic the earlier migration of large herds of antelope. Here, the bodies of sheep are curated and moved in order to perform a particular ordering of a Karoo ‘nature’. This movement is believed to instigate multispecies liveliness. Sheep, who were once destroyers of the veld, are now enrolled in practices that are believed to bring back the ‘natural’ vegetation of the Karoo. The thesis problematises the ongoing Western ways of knowing that separate the world into binaries of ‘nature’/’culture’, ‘human’/’non-human’, ‘subject’/object’, ‘domestic’/‘wild’, ’economy’/‘ecology’, ‘life’/‘death’. Rather, it argues that a concern with ontological plurality is a process of paying attention to the mutual ecologies and multiple species that gather in human/nonhuman worlding projects on rangelands in the Karoo.

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This thesis explores the lives of Maasai women today in general, and in particular as seen through the lens of one woman, and her social network in Kajiado County, southern Kenya. By using a storytelling approach, I let the women’s own vivid stories, thoughts and priorities stay in focus. While the women’s stories reveal personal details in their lives, I argue that their stories also broaden the perspective of what it is to be a Maasai woman today. Inspired by a framework of multispecies relations, especially the concept of relatedness, I look at the relationships – to both humans and non-humans – which shapes the women's lives, possibilities, decisions, and concerns. As I explore the women's more-than-human worlds, the agency of cows, goats, sheep, and even flies are acknowledged. In combination with inspiration from the framework of feminist political ecology – especially the concepts of resource access and displacement – I bridge understandings about how multispecies relations affect the women, with reflections on education and working situations, and matters of land. With this thesis, I wish to contribute to and broaden the literature and often stereotyped image of what it is to be a Maasai, especially a Maasai woman.

This thesis examines the intricate relationship between mangroves and humans in Shyamnagar, Bangladesh. Mangroves in Shyamnagar are found both in the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest on earth, and in adaptation projects called nature based solutions (NbS), framed by the resilience narrative. The first part offers an introduction to these discourses, including the role of NGOs and governmental institutions, and critically analyzes the ways in which capitalist and modernist worldviews have influenced the establishment of new interaction zones between humans and mangroves through NbS projects, highlighting the omission of power dynamics and histories of dispossession. The second part delves into the nuanced relationships with the mangrove that transcend dominant global and organizational discourses. By emphasizing the agency of the mangrove as an active participant and co-creator of society in Shyamnagar, the boundaries between humans and nature, and communities and non-humans, are blurred. This challenges the notion of human exceptionalism and underscores the interconnectedness of all beings in shaping local landscapes, dynamics, and identities. The final part explores the relationships of care between humans and mangroves, recognizing the significance of care and affect in shaping human subjectivities and relationships with the biophysical environment. This thesis thereby emphasizes the importance of maintaining multispecies care even within practices that introduce anthropocentric, capitalistic, and market-oriented worldviews. By critically examining these dimensions, this thesis offers insights into the complex interactions between mangroves and humans in Shyamnagar, ultimately contributing to a broader understanding of the interplay between nature, society, and resilience.

To develop effective conservation planning and mitigate biodiversity loss, standardized metrics for monitoring and assessing biodiversity are needed. This information is particularly vital in Botswana, where knowledge of many of the diverse wildlife populations is lacking. To address this knowledge gap, my dissertation research evaluated the distributions, densities, and ecology of the wildlife community in northern Botswana, with a focus on terrestrial carnivore species given their importance both ecologically and economically. My objectives were threefold: 1) estimate the distributions of the mammal community (n = 44 species) and evaluate community, group, and species-specific responses to anthropogenic and environmental variables, 2) test whether the presence of intraguild species or resource availability had a larger influence on the seasonal distributions of carnivore species, and 3) simultaneously estimate the population densities of 7 carnivore species. To accomplish these objectives, I completed a multi-year camera trap survey in a 1,154-km2 study area and analyzed the data using occupancy models (single and multi- species) and spatially explicit capture-recapture models. Estimates of species richness ranged from 8 to 27 unique species, species had a mean occurrence probability of 0.32 (95% credible interval = 0.21–0.45), and estimated densities ranged from 1.8 aardwolves (Proteles cristata) to 12.7 spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) per 100 km2. The occupancy and richness of terrestrial mammals was negatively associated with human disturbance and in general, positively associated with open grasslands/floodplains. Carnivore species, specifically, tended to have greater species richness and larger population densities in open habitats than in closed. I also found carnivore distributions were positively associated with the detection rate of intraguild competitors and predators, suggesting competitor/predator avoidance did not play a large role in shaping carnivore community structure. My research highlights the pivotal role protected areas and grasslands play in conserving wildlife populations in northern Botswana. Additionally, my research helps progress camera trap analyses from single to multi-species assessments. Broader application of this multi-species approach would likely result in a better understanding of wildlife and carnivore communities which in turn, may help inform management actions aimed at addressing the loss of wildlife populations globally. / Ph. D.

Seasonally fluctuating water levels, known as flood pulses, influence the population dynamics and catches of fishes from river-floodplains. Although different measures of flood pulses, here called flood pulse variables, have been correlated to changes in catches of river-floodplain fishes, the flood pulse variables that have the strongest relationships to catches have not been identified. Furthermore, it is unclear if flood pulses influence catches of river-floodplain fishes with different life history strategies in different ways. Catches of 21 taxa from approximately 18,000 fishing trips were modeled as a function of fishing effort, gear type, seasonal flood pulse variables, and interannual flood pulse variables. These models were analyzed to understand which flood pulse variables had the strongest relationships to catches, and evaluate different flood pulse influences among taxa with different life history strategies. High water flood pulse variables generally had positive influences on catches in future years, while low water flood pulse variables generally had negative influences on catches in future years. Flood pulses generally had stronger influences on the catches of fishes with high fecundities and smaller eggs than on catches of fishes with low fecundities and larger eggs. Variation was observed in strengths and directions of flood pulse influences on catches of fishes with similar and different life history strategies. While my results were generally consistent with prevailing knowledge of how flood pulses influence catches of fishes, other biological factors of specific fish populations may further explain population responses to flood pulses. / Master of Science