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The wild workforce: Enlisting non-human labor in invasive species management
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Social Anthropology. Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Stockholm Resilience Centre.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9169-0064
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Social Anthropology.ORCID iD: 0009-0002-8868-8083
Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Social Anthropology.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8745-2717
Number of Authors: 42025 (English)In: Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, ISSN 2514-8486, E-ISSN 2514-8494, Vol. 8, no 2, p. 499-516Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

An all-hands-on-deck rationality appears to characterize invasive alien species (IAS) eradication. Not only are citizens enrolled in their monitoring and management to extend authorities’ capabilities, but a recent trend in so-called nature-based solutions also outsources labor to non-human species. Within the realm of biocontrol initiatives, these non-human actors are strategically enlisted to counter invasive species through various methods such as predation, detection, sensing, niche occupation, and infiltration for internal destruction. This paper critically examines this conscription of non-humans, including sentient animals, to do the dirty work for us, by synthesizing ongoing cases from each of these categories or careers of non-human labor. These range from metabolic and ecological labor, performed with relatively little human intervention, to contrived schemes of capturing, sterilizing, tagging, and releasing Judas animals to locate conspecifics for culling. In the IAS management context, most of this is a kind of necro-labor, where non-human workers, wittingly or unwittingly, end up as assassins, snitches, moles, thieves and destroyers of their targets, the undesired invasives. We argue that wild animal labor has been invisibilized insofar as these non-human laborers either are said to perform their “natural” behaviors or relegated to nature/property themselves, that is, the product of labor. Our paper further helps de-exceptionalize human labor over nature and make visible the kinds of contracts that we are entering into with non-human laborers and hence also our duties and responsibilities. Our focus on labor specifically in invasive species eradication helps highlight the harms involved in the necro-labor that targets undesirable species.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025. Vol. 8, no 2, p. 499-516
Keywords [en]
animal labor, biocontrol, Biopolitics, culling, ethics, invasive species
National Category
Other Biological Topics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-240385DOI: 10.1177/25148486241300941ISI: 001396905900001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105002266914OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-240385DiVA, id: diva2:1943268
Available from: 2025-03-10 Created: 2025-03-10 Last updated: 2025-09-22Bibliographically approved

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von Essen, EricaLennon, Gabriel UlrichAhlberg, Karin

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