Feral: A Nearly Carbon Neutral Conference is a free online conference examining the concept of the ‘feral’ through the lenses of political ecology and ecocriticism.

Feral is hosted by the Massey University Political Ecology Research Centre (Aotearoa New Zealand) in conjunction with the Wageningen University Centre for Space, Place and Society (Netherlands). The conference runs from 12 November - 2 December 2018.

The idea of the feral gestures towards forms of non-human life that have spurned human control or expectations: ‘bad’ forms of wilderness that are out of place and upset conventional thinking about the desirable or proper arrangement of nature. From biosecurity to so-called invasive species, ‘dead zones’ to re-wilding, urban pests to unwanted populations, the idea of the feral calls on us to interrogate our assumptions about how, what, where and why nature ought to be, how we draw those lines and distinctions and how they speak to wider structures of power, political economy and privilege.

The conference features keynote presentations from:

Fred Pearce (author of The New Wild and Fallout),

Professor Mark Davis (Macalester College, author of Invasion Biology)

Dr Arian Wallach (University of Technology Sydney, Centre for Compassionate, The Dingo for Biodiversity Project)

There are also a range of online ‘panels’ on topics such as conservation, biopolitics, indigeneity, agriculture and art and other areas of feral concern.

As the conference is entirely online, anyone is able to join in the conversations and discuss and develop our presenters’ contributions. Please visit http://perc.ac.nz/wordpress/feral/ for more details.