Project
Wild Experiments
The project examined the history, politics and geographies of rewilding, which is emerging as a new paradigm for wildlife conservation. It focused on a case study of the Oostvaardersplassen in the Netherlands and the use of 'de-domesticated' Heck cattle to drive this rewilding experiment.
The project has three main aims:
1. To interrogate the geopolitics of European rewilding to provide a critical overview of the past and future natures invoked in the discourses of powerful advocates and opponents of rewilding, concentrating in particular on geopolitical debates that interweave European (dis)integration and national identity with appeals to authentic paleo-ecologies and biogeographies;
2. To situate European rewilding in its historic context. The project produces a 20th century genealogy of Heck cattle as an example of European rewilding. In this way to map changing forms, territories and temporalities associated with the fraught transition from pre-WW2 romantic nationalism to contemporary cosmopolitanism federalism;
3. To critically explore the biopolitics of rewilding. The project examines the frictions between rewilding and the de-domestication of a companion species (Heck cattle) and alternative modes of nonhuman biopolitics, including animal welfare, biosecurity and biodiversity.
1. To interrogate the geopolitics of European rewilding to provide a critical overview of the past and future natures invoked in the discourses of powerful advocates and opponents of rewilding, concentrating in particular on geopolitical debates that interweave European (dis)integration and national identity with appeals to authentic paleo-ecologies and biogeographies;
2. To situate European rewilding in its historic context. The project produces a 20th century genealogy of Heck cattle as an example of European rewilding. In this way to map changing forms, territories and temporalities associated with the fraught transition from pre-WW2 romantic nationalism to contemporary cosmopolitanism federalism;
3. To critically explore the biopolitics of rewilding. The project examines the frictions between rewilding and the de-domestication of a companion species (Heck cattle) and alternative modes of nonhuman biopolitics, including animal welfare, biosecurity and biodiversity.