Narrating Entangled Vulnerabilities in an Age of Global Crises

Abstract

We are ever more connected, on a global scale, and our problems have no real borders, as we are increasingly aware in the ongoing discussions of the global climate and biodiversity crises. This collection brings together different vantage points on the interstitial relationship between these considerations. While the chapters in the volume are organized in three sections—perspectives on the climate crisis; concrete challenges of extinctions; and posthuman reconfigurations of human-nonhuman relations—this introduction traces other elements of continuity between the chapters: framing, vulnerability, and interconnectedness. We open by discussing how framing operates when considering climate crises and the nonhuman. Then, following Rachel Carson, we consider the notion of vulnerability, as we are faced with global problems of pandemic and climate crisis. This is shared—by human and nonhuman actors alike—but shared unequally and impacts disproportionately. The introduction highlights this phenomenon and draws connections along this axis. For, just as we are vulnerable, we are also interconnected, which is both a strength and part of our vulnerability. Our narrative responses to these challenges, paired with the goals of such a discussion, bring us back to the frame of the debate and frame the collection as a whole.