We Belong Here: Queer Rurality and the (Eco)Poetics of New Nature Writing (Mike Parker, Luke Turner, Amanda Thomson)

This paper studies a body of hybrid non-fiction works that lie at the intersection of queer and nature writing and which articulate a new conceptualisation the queer subject’s relationship with rurality. Those pioneering narratives – which for the purpose of the present research have been labelled “queer new nature writing” – do not offer a simple reversal of the traditional mode of thinking about the agonistic character of the queer-rural dyad. Instead, having recognised the very potential and possibility of the queer life beyond the city, they remain deeply aware of the need to imagine new ways to think and write about their experience of queer belonging in the rural space. The major aim of the paper is thus to identify the signposts of queer new nature writing and argue in favour of acknowledging the micro-genre’s unique (eco)poetics: one that is distinguished by such markers as the exploration of queer rural heritage, counter-pastoralism, or the presence of the auto(eco)theoretical impulse.