Narrative, Database, and Biodiversity Loss
Ursula Heise, Stanford University

Humans are currently confronting a mass extinction on Earth that may eliminate up to 50%25 of existing species by 2100. In response, biologists seek to create global database inventories of all known species and to classify them by their degree of endangerment, even as basic concepts such as "species" and "biodiversity" remain contested. The digital Red List of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in particular combines narrative and spatial data in a globally influentially conservation tool. "Narrative, Database, and Biodiversity Loss" analyzes database formats that have emerged around endangered species by way of topic analysis and spatial analysis so as to explore whether they offer an alternative to the well-established environmentalist discourse about the decline of nature and offer clues to a more future-oriented perspective on humans' interactions with nonhumans. Heise's talk is arranged in cooperation between Umeå Studies in Science, Technology, and Environment and HUMlab.