On Wednesday, October 5, the DePaul WRD community was joined by WRD alumna Dr. Jennifer Clary-Lemon, who restarted the in-person Writing and Rhetoric Across Borders Speaker Series! Her presentation, “Ecological Rhetorics in vivo/in situ: Precarity Infrastructure Across Borders.” examined both “human and nonhuman elements of the rhetorical situation . . . in vivo/in situ,” that is, “in living bodies and on site.”
Clary-Lemon, rhetorician and associate professor at the University of Waterloo, shared her examination of “precarity infrastructure”—measures that act as mitigation for human harms against the environment, often without success. In her presentation, Clary-Lemon discussed her field research on two particular infrastructures—barn and bank swallow structures and artificial owl burrows—as well as how they shape human and nonhuman interactions with one another.
To begin, Clary-Lemon dove into the field research she conducted between April and June 2019, where she examined barn and bank swallow structures built along highways in Southern Ontario. She explained that these structures were initially built to comply with the Canadian Species at Risk Act (SARA) in an attempt to mitigate the harmful effects of habitat destruction. She later realized, during travels to Europe, that similar structures were propping up elsewhere in response to similar laws, such as a specific artificial swallow nester in the center of Paris, France. Unfortunately, as Clary-Lemon notes, many of these structures were not actually housing the swallows they were built to attract—forcing us to ask if such initiatives are genuine mitigative measures or “just a feel-good operation.”
Clary-Lemon also discussed the fascinating construction of artificial burrows built for the Western Burrowing Owl in Phoenix, Arizona, and Manitoba, Canada. Many of these substitute habitats, intended to replace the birds’ preferred environment, once again sat uninhabited. As Clary-Lemon pointed out, “human interventions do not equate to habitat, no matter how hard we try.”
Yet, among these situations of failed mitigation, Clary-Lemon also acknowledged how rhetorical analysis opens intriguing opportunities to shape improved conservation efforts in the future. First, she pointed out how precarity infrastructure acts persuasively both on human and nonhuman species, and gives us several questions through which to examine human behavior:
- What stories do we tell ourselves when we encounter these mitigation strategies?
- What stories do these actions tell the nonhuman species around us?
- Where does this leave our relationship to one another?
In addition, Dr. Clary-Lemon discussed the challenges that human concepts like laws and borders pose to harmonious “intraspecies entanglement.” For example, the IUCN Red List, which is compiled by over 8000 scientists in 162 countries, is considered the most comprehensive database of the global species facing endangerment or extinction. Yet, oftentimes local and nation-state laws override or contradict the science behind the Red List, leaving gaps for what humans think they are “able” to protect.
Examining the gaps between these rhetorical constructions of what is possible gives us insight into what possibilities we may have actually ignored. Finally, looking at precarity infrastructure through Clary-Lemon’s new materialist rhetorical lens asks us to acknowledge the failures of our current relationships with nonhuman species, to rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about these nonhuman responses, and to create “cross-border, holistic approaches” that enact hopeful and informed conservation moving forward.
Another warm thank you to Dr. Clary-Lemon for sharing her fascinating research and insights with us, and thank you to everyone who joined us in making the event a success! You can find out more about Dr. Clary-Lemon’s work here.