Trespassing Natures: Species Migration and the Right to Space

As old worlds become hostile and new spaces become hospitable, many species are shifting their ranges to live in locations where they have never previously existed. Biological and sociocultural realms collide and boundaries blur, making it increasingly difficult to mark definitively who belongs and who is a trespasser. In Trespassing Natures, Donnie Johnson Sackey troubles the idea of biological ＂invasion,＂ turning our attention away from scientific considerations and toward the discursive and rhetorical dimensions of this term--offering a new paradigm that recasts this issue as a question of what it means to live in multi-species communities. Presenting case studies on bed bugs, bighead carp, feral cats, and mackerel, Sackey argues that the identification of a species as an invader is not merely a scientific act, but a cultural and political one. By questioning issues around space, identity, and the institutions that make human participation apparent, Sackey redirects focus away from the belief that a single species threatens space. Ultimately, Trespassing Natures asks us to expand our idea of community and question who has the right to space.

Donnie Johnson Sackey is Assistant Professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. His work has appeared in Communication Design Quarterly, Rhetoric Review, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, and Technical Communication Quarterly, among others.