Swamphen: A Journal of Cultural Ecology

Swamphen: A Journal of Cultural Ecology encourages critically creative responses to the sentient habitats of the world. We publish scholarly articles, lyrical essays, creative works and reviews of relevant scholarship, amplifying work that attends to human encounters with other species. Our journal emerges from the air, lands and seas that formed the first peoples of our region and we attend to these communities’ narratives as a first principle. While the journal primarily offers literary insights into the unsettled territories many know as Australia and Aotearoa, we also look to other ecologies in formation during this time of critical environmental change. Swamphen is peer reviewed and published biennially, in response to ASLEC-ANZ conferences. We welcome proposals for special issues.

Swamphen: a Journal of Cultural Ecology was previously known as the Australasian Journal of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology. Our refreshed name refers to the Australasian swamphen (Porphyrio melanotus), known as the pūkeko in Māori language and the kwilom in Noongar language. Like the swamphen, our journal attends to life on the ground, in the skies and in waters. The name itself, swamp and hen, brings together the plants, earth, water and animals that are the focus of ASLEC-ANZ.

Editorial Collective: Christine Howe, Alanna Myers, Sue Hall Pyke, Adam Grener, Jennifer Hamilton, Chantelle Bayes.

General enquiries: Susan Pyke (smpyke@unimelb.edu.au)

Book review queries: Alanna Myers (alanna.myers@unimelb.edu.au)

Current Issue: Volume 10 (2024): Ngā Tohu o te Huarere: Conversations Beyond Human Scales (Christine Howe, Alanna Myers, Robyn Maree Pickens, Sue Pyke)

Featuring the work of Ellen van Neerven, Fred Gesha, Sadie Hale, Louisa King and Therese Keogh, Luna Mrozik Gawler, Rachel Fetherston and Jessica Wilson, Carole Freeman and Deborah Wardle. 

Swamphen emerges from the air, lands and seas that form the stories of the First Peoples of Australia and Aotearoa. We attend to these communities’ narratives as a first principle. We acknowledge the unceded territories on which we and our contributors have worked to produce this issue of Swamphen. We pay our respects to those territories’ Elders, past and present, with an eye to our namesake, the swamphen (kwilom, milu, ping ping, Porphyrio melanotus, pukeko), a bird active in this region’s ground, skies and waters. 

Forthcoming Issues: #11

Past Issues:

Swamphen is published through the University of Sydney and current and previous editions are available at:  https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/Swamphen

Cover artwork and design by Charlie Perry 

 

Swamphen - A Journal of Cultural Ecology