I’ve written a short piece on established and emergent uses of the critical concept “Companion Species” for the Environmental Humanities Glossary – an online initiative edited by Ulrik Ekman and Daniel Irrgang and conceived as part of the activities in the Art and Earth research cluster in the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen.

As Ulrik and Daniel write “This collection of entries seeks to pave ways through the challenges of defining key descriptive and normative terms for the environmental humanities – to let new senses emerge, whose operative usage may offer better purchase at moving through the complex environmental and human problems at stake.”

The glossary has lots of cool contributions (and will continue to publish even more) including “Symbiosis” by Steffen Krejberg Knudsen, “Plant” by John Charles Ryan, “Chicken Little (A Fable for Staying with the Trouble in Fearful Times)” by Donna Haraway, and “Scales: close, far, fast, slow & all in your face” by Elspeth Probyn.

My piece on “Companion Species” argues that “Thinking relationally challenges the idea of a ‘standard’ species, gender or language – it becomes that little grain of sand that annoys and precludes simple answers by constantly reminding the researcher of the power relations inherent in the tools of analysis. The concept of ‘companion species’ complicates, queers, and enriches humanistic research by insisting we put multilingual, multidisciplinary, and multispecies perspectives at the core.”