Inventing Ecosystems

This open access book examines the origins of the “ecosystem” concept through the perspective of the rhetoric of science and technology. Studying the pioneering work of ecosystems ecologists Eugene and Howard T. Odum, this book reveals the entwined intellectual history that the recent “ecological turn” in rhetoric, writing, and communication studies shares with ecosystems ecology, connections forged in a time of nuclear accelerationism and colonial scientific practices. The book uncovers the historical contexts of the ecosystem, critiques ethical and political dimensions of the ecosystems project, explores how systems thinking has influenced rhetorical inquiry, and encourages scholars to reassess their approaches to ecological inquiry, foregrounding social and environmental justice. Based on archival research and fieldwork, this book invites readers to delve into the history of modern ecology, as told through the Odum brothers’ pathbreaking, yet also harmful and extractive, research into the trophic dynamics of ecosystems, beginning with the end of World War II through the 1970’s, and at sites ranging from the Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands, to Silver Springs in Florida, to El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico. This book examines how the colonial history of ecology persists in shaping modern science and environmental rhetoric by mapping the historical, geographic, environmental, and cultural influences on its development. Specifically, Inventing Ecosystems argues that attending to this political and historical context can help facilitate ecological thinking and has important implications for the rhetoric of science and technology.

Madison P. Jones is an associate professor of science communication with a dual appointment in the Departments of Professional/Public Writing and Natural Resources Science at the University of Rhode Island, where he is a Senior Fellow at the Coastal Institute, directs the Digital Writing Environments, Location, and Localization (DWELL) Lab, and coordinates the Science Writing & Rhetoric graduate certificate program. He co-edited Rhetorical Ecologies (NCTE, 2024) and Writing the Environment in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Bloomsbury, 2015). His articles have appeared in journals such as Kairos, Rhetoric Review, and Rhetoric Society Quarterly.