Ontological security under invasive life conditions: Thinking With a blackberry on Canada's sunshine coast

Abstract

Abstract

The Sunshine Coast of southern British Columbia, Canada, is extensively populated by Himalayan blackberries ( Rubus armeniacus ), a species introduced to North America in the late nineteenth century. In their coexistence with other species, humans often categorize nonhuman life forms as either beneficial or detrimental. Yet the Himalayan blackberry challenges this binary classification: while widely recognized as an invasive species that threatens local biodiversity, it also serves as a valuable source of food for birds, mammals, and humans. Moreover, the city of Powell River celebrates this plant as a local emblem through its annual Blackberry Festival. At the same time, the city is engaged in a public debate about renaming itself, due to the controversial legacy of Israel Wood Powell, British Columbia's first Superintendent of Indian Affairs, who the city is named after. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews, this paper examines three human–blackberry entanglements, representing contrasting approaches to handling multispecies relations that are embedded within the legacies of settler colonialism and its extractive infrastructures. Conceptualizing present-day Powell River as the “Powell River Patch”, i.e., the outcome of imperial and industrial infrastructures, the analysis brings the concept of invasive life into conversation with the theory of ontological security. In doing so, the paper argues for understanding multispecies cohabitation not only as an ecological condition but also as a critical lens for examining contemporary political and societal challenges in the Anthropocene.