Having a drink with awkward Brett: Brettanomyces , taste(s) and wine/markets

What ethico‐politics are we complicit in when we eat insects? Or produce them for feed? In this article we think through underexplored ideas of human‐insect response‐abilities, or ‘care’ in the acts of ‘producing’ insects that are to be: eaten by humans or non‐humans; or, enrolled in eating other species for environmental ‘management’. Rather than merely passive recipients of human care, we think through insect agency to highlight the affective capacities of insects in acts of human to more‐than‐human reciprocal care. Drawing on a qualitative study of diverse insect‐work in Aotearoa New Zealand, we demonstrate how insects are recognised as active in their caregiving processes, and what this might mean for our right relations with insects.

Section: Theory Of Affectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complexities of care in insect‐human relations

Yee

Sharp

2023

“…Buttle et al (2023) refer to work on contaminants as 'morethan-living' agents, citing Romero et al (2017). Siimes (2023) even gives a human name and quality to his central subject, calling the fungal species Brettanomyces 'awkward Brett'. Yee and Sharp (2023) resist separating humans from non-humans entirely, instead writing of 'human-insect assemblages'.…”

Section: Conceptualising Communities Of More Than Just Humansmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The authors in this special issue recognise the agency of rivers, microbes, plants, insects, and chemicals by giving them action verbs in their written texts. Awkward Brett 'destroys everything' but also 'questions binaries and 'resists pacification' (Siimes, 2023). Bodies of water 'contest, create and rework' (Samuelson et al, 2023), as insects 'work' and do 'labour' in bioeconomies (Yee & Sharp, 2023).…”

Section: Conceptualising Communities Of More Than Just Humansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coloniality and Indigenous ways of knowing at the edges: Emplacing Earth kin in conservation communities

Weber

Barron

2023

Participation of Indigenous peoples and local communities is encouraged in calls for sustainable transitions and transformations. The term ‘community’ is widely used yet nebulously defined. Conservation that removes people from their communities of land invokes epistemological authority and displaced relationships. We relate our work to the articles in this special issue to rethink the relationship between humans and nature in conservation. We propose expanding the term ‘local communities’ to include more than just humans. By decentring the human subject, we rethink what it means to participate in community and place‐making, further unpacking the ethical motivations of emplacement.

“…In thinking about different ways of living‐with(in) a MTH world, the next two papers help to draw out and acquaint readers with other beings who are ostensibly less ‘charismatic’ (Lorimer, 2007) than the ubiquitous plants or megafauna of Aotearoa. Siimes (2023) goes microscopic, building off a recent interest in STS approaches and the social study of microbes. His paper ferments on a particularly challenging wine and beer yeast— Brettanomyces —that calls for reconceptualising our understanding of taste and qualification.…”

Section: Special Issue Papersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Antipodean more‐than‐human geographies: From the edges

Siimes,

Yee,

McSherry

et al. 2023

Self Cite

To be more‐than‐human is to be relational, to no longer see the human as a discrete individual and to recognise the multivalent agency and import of the non‐human in bio‐physical, socio‐economic and cultural worlds. This Special Issue galvanises an interest by Aotearoa New Zealand geographers in non‐human–human relations and delivers more‐than‐human research from the edges: of the discipline, from our geographic position antipodal to ‘the west’ and ‘the north’, from early career researchers and from cognate literatures at the periphery of geographic thought. The contributions here question understandings of ethics, politics, conservation and economy through papers that explore affect, care, agency, discourses and practices with a range of more‐than‐human subject‐objects: blackberries, wine yeasts, insects, PFAS and urban streams.