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Cross-Pollinating: Indigenous Knowledges of Extinction and Genocide in Honeybee Fictions

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Indigenous Creatures, Native Knowledges, and the Arts

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature ((PSAAL))

Abstract

The best-known insects worldwide, European honeybees (apis mellifera) came to be that way through histories in which colonial experiences and indigenous frictions extend far beyond human communities. Amid a growing crisis in honeybee health in recent decades, novelists explore the multispecies dimensions of their colonial experience in the converging contexts of extinction and genocide. Through fictions by David Malouf, J.M. Coetzee, Amitav Ghosh, Sue Monk Kidd, Louise Erdrich, Douglas Coupland, Lindsay Eagar, and others, this essay outlines a pattern in which the convergence of native knowledges and histories of mass killings spurs productive interventions in contemporary honeybee fictions.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. English Department, University of New England, Biddeford, USA

    Susan McHugh

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  1. Susan McHugh
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Correspondence to Susan McHugh .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa

    Wendy Woodward

  2. English Department, University of New England, Biddeford, Maine, USA

    Susan McHugh

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McHugh, S. (2017). Cross-Pollinating: Indigenous Knowledges of Extinction and Genocide in Honeybee Fictions. In: Woodward, W., McHugh, S. (eds) Indigenous Creatures, Native Knowledges, and the Arts. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56874-4_13

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