Rewilding the world in the postcolonial age: On the nexus between cultural production and species politics

ABSTRACT

This article discusses how the politics of dewilding and rewilding interact with biodiversity, cultural diversity, and cultural production. Although dewilding – stripping nature of healthy ecosystems and its various species – is still a widespread practice around the globe, it has a particular relationship with the colonial period. Dewilding under colonialism implies the suppression of the resistance of the colonized as well as the extermination of species, especially of those standing in as metaphors for the resistance of those to be colonized. As a case study, this article analyses the metaphorical perception of the wolf from the colonial period in Britain, Ireland, and the US until today to demonstrate how literature has supported both the extermination and the reinstitution of wolves, and how the trajectory from “dewolfing” to “rewolfing” can potentially benefit both nature and culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Rewilding
• wolves
• colonialism
• metaphor
• ecosystem
• literature

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Peter Arnds

Professor Peter Arnds teaches comparative literature at Trinity College Dublin, where he is also a permanent fellow. He has held visiting positions in Kabul, Delhi, Adelaide, and Salamanca, and is a member of the PEN Centre for German-Speaking Writers Abroad (Exil PEN) and of Academia Europaea. His publications include books on Wilhelm Raabe, Charles Dickens, Günter Grass, Lycanthropy in German Literature (2015), and Translating Holocaust Literature (2015). His book Wolves at the Door: Myth, Metaphor, Migration is forthcoming with Bloomsbury Publishing. He has also translated Patrick Boltshauser’s novel Stromschnellen (2014, nominated for the IMPAC, Dublin International Literary Award), and published a novel, Searching for Alice (2019).