“Invasive species?”

A transdisciplinary, critical, collective investigation on migrating knowledge conceived and led by Avital Barak. Organised by AiR 351 through funding by DGARTES.

Participants: 
Lucía Andujar, Marta Angelozzi, Alexandra do Carmo, Márcio Carvalho, Ellie Ga, Lena Lewis King, Jacki Ochs, Vanja Smiljanić, Takashi Sugimoto and Giovanni Tusa.

Invited guest speakers:
Rui Costa Lopes, Marta Macedo and Elizabete Marchante

“Invasive species has emerged as a significant area of interest in recent decades. This is due to the growing discourse on environmental issues, the climate crisis, and the role of human beings in the Anthropocene era, which has led to ongoing dramatic changes in our planet.

The term is primarily employed in ecological professional discourse, emphasising the challenges of maintaining a sustainable ecological environment in a global world where not only the movement of people and things is constant, but also the intervention of humanity with “natural” biological ecosystems has completely changed our planet.However, the term “invasive species” is not limited to the ecological context. Over the past two decades, the world has witnessed two concurrent dramatic trends: a growing global crisis of refugees and immigration, with millions of people forced to leave their homes due to various reasons in search of a better future, and the uprise of populist right-wing political trend that has gained significant traction. In this context, the designation of a population as an invasive species, even if not in a literal sense, has become a common and popular worrying phenomenon.

This transdisciplinary investigation commences with a question mark, which we propose to add to the term ‘invasive species’. Both as a biological description and as a social metaphor, our objective is to elucidate the meanings and context, the reasons and implications, and the challenges and benefits of using this category.

The scientific definition of an invasive alien species (IAS) as outlined by the Biodiversity Information System for Europe is as follows: a non-native species whose introduction and/ or spread outside their natural, past or present ranges poses a threat to biodiversity. Invasive alien species occur in all major groups, including animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms. In at least some island ecosystems, they are considered to be the second most important reason for biodiversity loss worldwide, after direct habitat loss or destruction. Invasive species can cause significant harm to native species by competing with them for food, consuming them, spreading diseases, causing genetic changes through interbreeding with them and disrupting various aspects of the food web and the physical environment.

Such a categoric negative description eliminates any possibility of a complex thought about a given reality. However, even from an ecological perspective, the subject raises several questions that complicate the given categorical assumptions. Questions that involve the role of human history, the connection between geography and politics (i.e. borders), and the effect of hundreds of years of colonialism on nature. Moreover, it raises issues of evolution, diversity, and the natural process of change. As a social metaphor, the invasive species concept can be employed as a critical paradigm to examine a diverse range of social challenges that are characteristic of the contemporary era. These include not only questions pertaining to immigration, mobility, and social justice, but also issues of nativity and settler colonialism, modern global tourism, and the emergence of digital nomadism. The extensive range of potential interpretations and manifestations of this subject makes it an extremely fruitful category for a variety of investigations” (Avital Barak).

Final presentation (estimated date): October 2025