Alienated Species and Unsettled Ecologies: Locating “Redneck” Conservation in the Racial Discourse of “Asian” Carp Invasion

Abstract:Science studies scholars identify parallels between anti-immigrant and anti-invasive species rhetoric but have yet to consider how this linked racial discourse of invasion functions as part of a settler colonial project or what alternative forms of conservation arise through this confluence. Looking at this confluence through the lens of settler colonialism and Indigenous studies scholarship demonstrates how a form of environmental practice that I term “redneck” conservation reveals the racial and colonial logics of dominant invasive species discourses and practices. I propose the term alienated species to highlight these interconnections. Further, through a case study of “Asian” carp that explores social media, news media, and popular culture alongside Indigenous approaches, I argue that self-identified “redneck” settlers operationalize this discourse—alongside militaristic, masculinist embodiment—to position the “alien” as a foil against which they define whiteness and nativity while perpetuating Indigenous erasure. In this way, erasures of indigeneity and attacks against Asianness jointly produce the white male settled subject. In contrast, Indigenous communities engage a range of alternative responses to the carp and other alienated species within both formal land management strategies and everyday practices, such as harvesting. These responses reveal an Indigenous ethic of belonging that animates different ways of living on and providing care for the land, including the humans forced to live together.