Watch a book launch for Revenant Ecologies hosted by the ISRF.

University of Minnesota Press, 2024

Praise for Revenant Ecologies:

“Revenant Ecologies tackles the huge, widely resonating topic of extinction and blows it wide open with rigorous structural analysis from a broad base of humanities and social science traditions, engaging with Indigenous, feminist, and decolonial scholarship. Audra Mitchell challenges us to rethink how we use the concept of extinction and what ethical and justice issues we may have been missing all along” — Kyle Whyte, University of Michigan

“…by far one of the best books I have read on conservation. At a surface level the book is about one thing: revenant ecologies. But a deeper reading shows this book is about everything: the dominant capitalist system, the destructive forces of on-going colonial legacies, the production of knowledge, the need to centre BIPOC, disabled/crip, queer and Indigenous knowledges, the need to dismantle current forms of conservation, our understandings of environmental crisis, and more” — Rosaleen Duffy, University of Sheffield, Environmental Peacebuilding

“Revenant ecologies is a uniquely hopeful book. At a time when apocalyptic extinction discourses feel pervasive, Mitchell shows the reader that refusing nihilistic narratives is integral to challenging the eliminative violences that cause extinction… for those whose work is connected to conservation, extinction, and environmental justice, or for the reader who wants to reframe their climate anxiety, this transformative book is a must read” — JL Baird, Canadian Geographies

“an impressive and compelling reconsideration of the meaning of ex‐ tinction.…Mitchell shines a knowing light on eco-narrative possibilities beyond the confines of linear time and indus‐ trial progress, asking readers to imagine our world from a future that is both embattled and empowered - P Whitmarsh, H-Net Social Science and Humanities Reviews

“Mitchell incisively dissects the language and narratives of dominant Western approaches of conservation.. she convincingly, and in great detail, shows how these visions of conservation are less about the protection of ecological difference than the protection of Western ways of life and of relating to nature… For Mitchell, resisting extinction is about countering the apocalyptic narratives of conservation and about fighting the broader social structures which produce eliminative violence: capitalism, colonialism, racism, [and] ableism… The perspective Mitchell offers us is [one] from which we can face and fight these structures, while holding on to the imminent and inextinguishable possibility of resurgence, return, and flourishing” - D. Arsenault, Ancillary Review of Books

Highly recommended in Choice Reviews (American Library Association) by RA Delgado, National Science Foundation

Critiquing the Western discourse of global extinction and biodiversity, Revenant Ecologies promotes new ways of articulating the ethical enormity of global extinction. Arguing that Western conservation approaches not only ignore but also magnify powerful forms of structural violence, Audra Mitchell fuses political ecology, global ethics, and violence studies to offer concrete, practical alternatives.

Now available as an audiobook from Tantor Media on Audible and other platforms.