The Matter of Mapping Multispecies Entanglements of Mourning—A Manifesto’s Shout, An Orca’s Tour of Grief

• Published in: Matter: Journal of New Materialist Research
• Main Author: Moulton, Jacqueline Viola
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Universitat de Barcelona 2021
• Subjects: Killer Whale; Killer whale
• Online Access: http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/matter/article/view/33376

Mapping entanglements is work—work of care, maintenance, and mourning. This project utilises a new materialist methodology inherited from the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, who follow lines of becoming to track compositions which compose worlds. To map (non-linear, temporal, and situated) lines of loss across multispecies landscapes is material work of more-than-human mourning. The New York City-based performance artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles—alongside scholars such as María Puig de la Bellacasa and Donna J. Haraway—reorient configurations of work and care, which enable these lines to be followed into more-than-human worlds. Mapping lines of mourning into multispecies worlds is material work of the aesthetic-ethical response within shared and troubled landscapes. The key storytellers within the narrative of mourning and joy woven into this paper are the Salish Sea, the Lummi Nation, the Chinook Salmon, and the Southern Resident killer whale; the voices and cries to which this project, in work and care, is dedicated.