Multispecies Commoning and Uncommoning in Knockvologan

A Response to “Scale Political”

Abstract

This visual essay responds to Donaldson and Kymlicka’s “Scale Political”, by mapping different political scales in and around Knockvologan Studies, a space for art, literature, research and nature preservation, on the Isle of Mull (Scotland). Focusing on the agency of more-than-human animals and plants, it shows how different political relations, communities and encounters exist simultaneously in one place. The essay zooms in on nonhuman forms of resistance, solidarity, belonging, and building community, by looking at the practices of sheep, mink, plants using rocks and many others. Instead of explicating these different political scales in human words, the essay shows different forms of being and relating. As such, it invites the reader to attend more closely to nonhuman and multispecies forms of meaning-making, beyond human language and existing forms of democracy.