Queer(y)ing Oceans

Surprises of Grief in Critically-Creative Co-Research at the Eco-Queer Nexus

Abstract

This article describes how grief surfaced unexpectedly in a creative research collaboration in which nine co-researchers sought to queer(y) culturally dominant representations of oceans. Using workshop-based methods of queer writing and sketching in response to ocean-themed prompts, our initial aim was to trouble Western cultural conceptions of masculinity and femininity, human and beyond-human, among other reductive dichotomies. We planned to queerly reimagine dominant mythologies of mermaids, selkies, sirens, and other sea-beings. However, when we analysed our creative samples, we observed that, in addition to anticipated themes, our creative work brimmed with unconscious and conscious evocations of grief. This article braids creative writing and sketches with discussion of how we encountered grief through reflection on death, loss, rejection, marginalisation, abjection, and melancholia. Pondering how and why we had not anticipated grief – a theme arguably obvious in any queer and/or ecological project – propels our inquiries via theories of queer failure, queer time, and queer feminist biophilosophy towards a renewed appreciation of our initial eco-queer focus. We thus articulate what we made of grief and how it informs our ongoing critically creative work at the eco-queer nexus.