The Moral, Legal & Political Status of Humans and Non-Humans | Mel Y Chen

‘Fire and Ash’,
Associate Professor Mel Y Chen, University of California, Berkeley
While fire has valences of destruction, death and renewal, ash is a particulate that can amass former lives. Many places in the world including parts of Australia and the U.S. West are bound by burdens and anticipatory temporalities of transformative fire and ash. Associate Professor Mel Y Chen meditates on the species ramifications of California’s fire management policy as well as the multispecies nature of ash, and thinks with a Queensland permanent art installation by artist Fiona Foley.
This paper was presented at 'The moral, legal & political status of humans, animals and the environment' symposium, part of the Thinking and Enacting Justice in a Multispecies World symposia series, held at the University of Sydney 12 - 20 June 2019. For more information: bit.ly/2Tg1Ot4