Borders: Invasives Research I
TOPIC: Borders, Invasive
An informational written post (discover and define the basics of your topics, start to write about its upsides/downsides/cultural differences, problems, norms)
An experimental “making” post (a sketch, collage, poem), that responds in some way to your research - think of it as (your first?) mini-research based art!
My cohort is under borders, with my specific topic being “invasive.” When I initially saw the cohort and topic chosen for me, I was disappointed. My immediate reaction was that I did not want to engage with the heaviness of looking at border control and so-called invasives, as the topic felt very heavy and I felt very weary. However, it seemed like the nature of the topic could be as open as we wanted it to be, so I felt a little relieved.
My first step, as is with all things, was to make a mind map where I took about 5-10 minutes to list, from stream of consciousness, any words that I could associate with invasive. My nervousness about the word “invasive” was how uncomfortable I felt using it in reference to human beings, but how the word “border” seemed to require that this association be made. The mind map was helpful in releasing that assumption, and actually bringing forward a curious question about the topic.
From the mind map, I found a reoccurrence of the question of what creates borders, and what makes the crossing of a border invasive? There were questions about natural borders, imagined or symbolic borders, and what truly deemed a crossing of a border as invasive. For instance, a refugee might be deemed invasive through the lens of racism, but exploration to another land would not be? A natural border might stop a plant from growing in one area versus another, but to bring a plant from one country to another country would be bringing an invasive plant through customs. I decided to pursue these questions as my research topic:
what does it mean to be invasive?
what makes the system that dictates borders?
is the concept of “invasiveness” human made?
As part of my research, I will be looking specifically at what governs borders and invasiveness when it comes to plants and animals (mammals, fish, insects), and refining the language of my questions to be more specific in an attempt to define the term “invasive” as much as it is to research into the topic of invasive things itself.
Vocabulary:
Invasive - characterized by or involving invasion; offensive:invasive war, invading, or tending to invade; intrusive: Every party we have is crashed by those invasive neighbors; Medicine/Medical. requiring the entry of a needle, catheter, or other instrument into a part of the body, especially in a diagnostic procedure, as a biopsy: An x-ray is not invasive, but it may not tell us everything we need to know; (of a plant, especially a nonnative one) posing a threat to a plant community by growing vigorously and spreading prolifically among the previously established vegetation: One of these invasive Asian grasses is making its way to the forest floors of southern Indiana. [source]
Border - the part or edge of a surface or area that forms its outer boundary; the line, limit, or delimiting geographic feature that separates one country, state, province, etc., from another [source]
Barrier -
Invasive Species - An invasive species is a non-native species (including seeds, eggs, spores, or other propagules) whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic harm, environmental harm, or harm to human health. The term "invasive" is used for the most aggressive species. These species grow and reproduce rapidly, causing major disturbance to the areas in which they are present. [source]
Invasive Species definition clarification and guidance from US government - Executive Order 13112 defines an invasive species as “an alien species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.” In the Executive Summary of the National Invasive Species Management Plan the term invasive species is further clarified and defined as “a species that is non-native to the ecosystem under consideration and whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.” To provide guidance for the development and implementation of the Management Plan, the National Invasive Species Council (nisc) and the Invasive Species Advisory Committee (isac) adopted a set of principles outlined in Appendix 6 of the Management Plan. Guiding Principle 1 provides additional context for defining the term invasive species and states “many alien species are non-invasive and support human livelihoods or a preferred quality of life.” However, some alien species (the term non-native will be used in this white paper because it is more descriptive than alien), for example West Nile virus, are considered invasive and undesirable by virtually everyone. Other non-native species are not as easily characterized. For example, some non-native species are considered harmful, and therefore, invasive by some sectors of our society while others consider them beneficial. This discontinuity is reflective of the different value systems operating in our free society, and contributes to the complexity of defining the term invasive species. [source]
Invasive Species Terminology - The excessive number of terms associated with invasive species, and their often incorrect usage, hinders stakeholder education about the threats of invasive species. Here we introduce seven terms (native, nonnative, introduced, established, invasive, nuisance, and range change) that are applicable across invasive taxa, understandable, typically interpreted correctly, and useful for describing most situations regarding invasive species. We also list six terms to avoid (native invasive, invasive exotic, invasive weed, alien, foreign, and nonindigenous) that create confusion via their misuse and misinterpretation. The terms we propose will increase understanding, thereby promoting behavior changes aimed at limiting the negative impacts of invasive species. [source]
Pathways - the means and routes by which invasive species are introduced into new environments. Pathways can generally be classified as either natural or man-made.
Natural pathways - (i.e., those not aided by humans) include wind, currents (including marine debris), and other forms of natural dispersal that can bring species to a new habitat.
Man-made (or human-mediated) pathways - those which are created or enhanced by human activity. These are characteristically of two types:
Intentional, which is the result of a deliberate movement of a species by humans outside of its natural range. Examples include the introduction of biological control organisms or the movement of species for the horticultural or pet trade. Intentional introductions as a whole should not be labeled as either good or bad. A specific intentional pathway can only be judged by the positive or negative impact of the specific organisms that are moving along that means.
Unintentional, which is the inadvertent movement of species as a byproduct of some other human activity. Examples of unintentional pathways are ballast water discharge (e.g. red-tide organisms), pests and diseases in imported plants, firewood, and other agricultural products (e.g. fire ants), the movement of recreational watercraft (e.g. zebra mussels), and the international movement of people (e.g. pathogens). In these and countless other unintentional pathways, the movement of non-native species is an indirect byproduct of human activities.
[source]
Humans as “invasive” species - Narratives of “Out of Africa 2”—the expansion of Homo sapiens across Asia—emphasize the pattern of human dispersal but not the underlying processes. In recent years, the main debates have been over the timing and frequency of dispersal. Here, I treat these issues as subordinate to biogeographic ones that affected the behavior of humans in Asia as an invasive species that colonized new environments and had negative impacts on indigenous hominins… [source]
How “invasive species science” is politicized (on the right) - The native plant ideology is inconsistent with the basic principles of evolutionary theory and has dangerous political implications which have been applied in the past. In his article (“An Evolutionary Perspective on Strengths, Fallacies, and Confusions in the Concept of Native Plants”), published by Arnoldia, the journal of Harvard University’s arboretum, Stephen Jay Gould describes the concept of “native plants” as “a notion [which] encompasses a remarkable mixture of sound biology, invalid ideas, false extensions, ethical implications and political usages both intended and unanticipated.”(1) [source]
How “invasive species science” is politicized (on the left) - For example, invasives can be considered a threat not only by killing or outcompeting native species but also by mating with them. To protect the “genetic integrity” of species, conservationists often go to extraordinary lengths to prevent animals from hybridizing, environmental writer Emma Marris points out in her book Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World. Consider the effort in North Carolina to prevent coyotes from breeding with endangered red wolves, which bears uncomfortable parallels to Western preoccupations with racial purity that only recently went out of fashion. [source]
A reaction to above Vox article (opinion) - But in general, this article, conflating the problem of human immigration and crossing of politically determined borders with the invasion of animals and plants into novel areas, is a good example of the naturalistic fallacy. We learn nothing about how to deal with human immigration from studying invasive species. Not only that, but if you want to be more accurate in your analogy, you’d liken invasive species not to Central Americans crowded at the American border, but to Cortéz genocidal extinction of the Aztecs. After all, human immigrants don’t wipe out the population into which they meld. [source]
American Perceptions of Immigrant and Invasive Species - Sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose, humans have transported plants and animals to new habitats around the world. Arriving in ever-increasing numbers to American soil, recent invaders have competed with, preyed on, hybridized with, and carried diseases to native species, transforming our ecosystems and creating anxiety among environmentalists and the general public. But is American anxiety over this crisis of ecological identity a recent phenomenon? Charting shifting attitudes to alien species since the 1850s, Peter Coates brings to light the rich cultural and historical aspects of this story by situating the history of immigrant flora and fauna within the wider context of human immigration. Through an illuminating series of particular invasions, including the English sparrow and the eucalyptus tree, what he finds is that we have always perceived plants and animals in relation to ourselves and the polities to which we belong. Setting the saga of human relations with the environment in the broad context of scientific, social, and cultural history, this thought-provoking book demonstrates how profoundly notions of nationality and debates over race and immigration have shaped American understandings of the natural world. [source]
Summary:
There is a branch of science that deals with “invasive species” that has a definition in which any non-native species that is introduced to a new environment and then causes widespread harm is deemed “invasive.” The work around this research leads to limiting and eradicating invasive species from the new environment to protect the native environment. This branch of science has been used to talk about immigrants and refugees as “dangerous invasives,” but comparisons have also been drawn the other way in which comparison of immigrants and refugees to invasive species asks scientists to reconsider their treatment of invasive species. These conversations have led to questions about the nature of the vocabulary within the science, and the weaponizing of science for political clout, but also political questions about how biologists deal with eradication of invasive species, and whether or not it is humane (comparisons have been made between ICE and hunters licensed to shoot invasive species). Literature has also been written on the nature of comparing humans and animals at all, and how this perception might have come to be. I don’t actually know what to make of this all just yet.
Honestly, I just wanted to make a field guide to fishing bc I am interested in fishing and I thought taking the “it’s okay to fish invasive fish species” angle would be cool, but my research took me into this very intense direction. I don’t think I can pull off a tongue-in-cheek "field guide” for politics like this, since it feels like a heavy topic that needs to be taken seriously, but I don’t know that I can do a serious one either. I just wanted to do something cute :(