Queering ecology How biology builds our realities and why insects are central to undoing toxicity

The Biology EDI Committee are hosting this event with guest speaker Jazmeen Isa Qureshi, who will be talking about queering ecology, how biology builds our realities and why insects are central to undoing toxicity.

The talk, which will be accessible to non-biologists as well as biologists, will explore elements of ecology that show us our world differently. Can queering ecology be a useful mechanism for dismantling toxic foundations and structures of ‘normal' ecological understanding, and can that help us to build regenerative futures or at least reimagine our relationships with the organisms and ecosystems around us.

Jazmeen is an interdisciplinary and ‘Queering' ecologist, poet, facilitator, ‘Escaped' marine biologist and environmental advisor. Currently PhD-ing in Queer(ing) Ecologies at the Global Sustainability Institute, where she focuses on understanding, and potentially dismantling, oppressive ‘realities' in our and other organism ecosystems, patterns in decolonial and critical ecology, and works to understand how building relationships with insects and organisms within this realm is central to this work.

The talk will be followed by a panel discussion on Queering STEM with panellists from the Schools of Mathematics and Statistics, Chemistry, Psychology and Neuroscience, and Physics. After the panel discussion there will be a separate discussion session for early career researchers and an opportunity to meet with the speaker in an informal, relaxed environment.

Event schedule:

• 2pm: Jazmeen Isa Qureshi talk
• 3.15pm: Queering STEM panel
• 4.30pm: ECR event