About the Project

This essay collection highlights the rich possibilities of thinking with non-native species as a way of exploring the entangled cultural and environmental histories of Singapore and Southeast Asia more broadly. Whether they arrived to the region hundreds of years ago or in the last several decades, non-native species from fish and mosquitoes to flowering vines and palm trees have woven their way into the social and natural fabric of Singapore. In the process, they have variously enriched culinary traditions, sparked public health crises, created novel ecosystems, and inspired niche community obsessions. By teasing out the stories of more than a dozen different species and ecosystems, this collection challenges the negative moral valence often associated with "alien" species as a monolith. The species' histories of arrival, integration, celebration, and/or control reveal shifting patterns in global species exchange and allow us to imagine the future of more-than-human interactions in an increasingly interconnected and warming world. This collection of essays also showcases the interdisciplinary possibilities of doing research that draws on biological data as well as images, artefacts, and stories from Singaporean archives and museums.

This website is part of the project "Linking the Digital Humanities to Biodiversity History in Singapore and Southeast Asia", funded by the Singapore Ministry of Education's Social Science Thematic Research Grant (MOE2020-SSRTG-027). The essay collection was edited by research assistant Katherine Enright, who also provided technical support, under the supervision of PI Assistant Professor Anthony Medrano (Yale-NUS College). Other materials from this project, including datasets of non-native species, an interactive geovisualisation of species introductions to Singapore, the first published scientific records of introduced species in the region, and the project's public outreach activities, can be found on our Digital Gems collection under National University of Singapore (NUS) Libraries. The full code for this website can be accessed on our GitHub repository here.

Please direct any questions about the site to Katherine at kmenright@alumni.harvard.edu.