Undrowned: Humcore
Fluid Identity and Interconnectedness
Identification and Experience
The concept of identity becomes fluid when we identify with experiences different from our own, potentially extending to other species through a process of 'radical empathy.'
This process is complex and fraught with ethical considerations, involving deep emotional labor and the risk of anthropomorphism—projecting human-centric feelings onto beings that cannot respond in human languages.
It suggests that the 'I' is inclusive of the 'we,' where the 'we' encompasses the entire ecological web.
Systems of Oppression and Militarism
The speaker identifies a shared experience of oppression between humans and advanced marine mammals, particularly those targeted by militarized technologies (like sonar systems) and extractive capitalism (like commercial whaling and pollution).
This shared vulnerability indicates that the same systems of domination—imperialism, white supremacy, and extractivism—harm both marginalized human communities and the marine environment.
Despite these shared systems, the specificities of suffering remain distinct, requiring a nuanced understanding that avoids erasing the unique lived realities of either group.
Redefining the Human Narrative
Challenging Colonial Definitions
The objective is to move beyond merely eliciting sympathy; it is an ontological challenge to the Western, colonial definition of 'Human' (often referred to as 'Man').
Current definitions are built on hierarchies of separation, domination, and 'othering,' which are fundamentally incompatible with sustainable, reciprocal living.
By looking to marine mammals, the text seeks to find ways of being that do not rely on the exploitation of others or the earth.
Marine Mammal Apprenticeship
Embers of Emerging Strategies
Adopting the role of a 'marine mammal apprentice' signifies a shift from a position of mastery to one of humble learning and observation.
This apprenticeship involves rethinking personal relationships, labor practices, and sensory perceptions, using the adaptation strategies of whales and dolphins as templates for social survival.
Biological Models of Interconnectedness
Mycorrhizal Networks: Underground communication between trees via fungal networks serves as a metaphor for community mutual aid and resource sharing.
Resilience and Adaptation: The dandelion’s ability to thrive in harsh, neglected spaces and the mycelium’s role in decomposition and rebirth offer lessons in persistence.
These nature-based models encourage a reevaluation of cross-species relational dynamics, emphasizing that survival is a collective, rather than an individual, endeavor.
Attributes and Survival
Queer and Fierce Characteristics
Marine mammals are characterized as 'queer' not just in identity, but in their non-normative ways of relating, parenting, and surviving outside of human-imposed social structures.
Their 'fierceness' is a necessary response to survival within militarized and extractive contexts, where their very existence is an act of resistance against environmental destruction.
Accountability to Social Justice
Intersecting Movements
The work is deeply rooted in and accountable to specific social justice frameworks:
Black Liberation: Drawing parallels between the Middle Passage and the ocean as a site of both ancestral trauma and potential transformation.
Disability Justice: Valuing different ways of moving, breathing, and sensing the world.
Queer and Gender Justice: Challenging the binary and patriarchal structures that govern both human society and our view of nature.
Pedagogical Structure
Thematic Movements
The book is structured around nineteen 'movements' rather than traditional chapters, reflecting a rhythmic, non-linear approach to learning.
Themes include Breathing, Remembering, and Collaborating, which serve as both biological necessities and political practices.
Activation: The final segment provides guided activities intended to move the reader from theory to praxis, encouraging individual and group engagement with the meditations.
Authorial Context: Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Intellectual Genealogy
The author, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, identifies as a queer Black feminist love evangelist, framing her work as a devotional practice.
This text builds upon her 'poetic trilogy':
Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity: Exploring the desire for freedom.
M Archive: After the End of the World: A speculative look at what survives the apocalypse.
Dub: Finding Ceremony: A rhythmic exploration of ancestry and sound.
Her work synthesizes archival research, poetry, and marine biology to offer Black feminist lessons for the current climate and social crisis.
Fluid Identity and Interconnectedness
Identification and Experience
The concept of identity becomes fluid when we identify with experiences different from our own, potentially extending to other species through a process of 'radical empathy.'
This process is complex and fraught with ethical considerations, involving deep emotional labor and the risk of anthropomorphism—projecting human-centric feelings onto beings that cannot respond in human languages.
It suggests that the 'I' is inclusive of the 'we,' where the 'we' encompasses the entire ecological web.
Systems of Oppression and Militarism
The speaker identifies a shared experience of oppression between humans and advanced marine mammals, particularly those targeted by militarized technologies (like sonar systems) and extractive capitalism (like commercial whaling and pollution).
This shared vulnerability indicates that the same systems of domination—imperialism, white supremacy, and extractivism—harm both marginalized human communities and the marine environment.
Despite these shared systems, the specificities of suffering remain distinct, requiring a nuanced understanding that avoids erasing the unique lived realities of either group.
Redefining the Human Narrative
Challenging Colonial Definitions
The objective is to move beyond merely eliciting sympathy; it is an ontological challenge to the Western, colonial definition of 'Human' (often referred to as 'Man').
Current definitions are built on hierarchies of separation, domination, and 'othering,' which are fundamentally incompatible with sustainable, reciprocal living.
By looking to marine mammals, the text seeks to find ways of being that do not rely on the exploitation of others or the earth.
Marine Mammal Apprenticeship
Embers of Emerging Strategies
Adopting the role of a 'marine mammal apprentice' signifies a shift from a position of mastery to one of humble learning and observation.
This apprenticeship involves rethinking personal relationships, labor practices, and sensory perceptions, using the adaptation strategies of whales and dolphins as templates for social survival.
Biological Models of Interconnectedness
Mycorrhizal Networks: Underground communication between trees via fungal networks serves as a metaphor for community mutual aid and resource sharing.
Resilience and Adaptation: The dandelion’s ability to thrive in harsh, neglected spaces and the mycelium’s role in decomposition and rebirth offer lessons in persistence.
These nature-based models encourage a reevaluation of cross-species relational dynamics, emphasizing that survival is a collective, rather than an individual, endeavor.
Attributes and Survival
Queer and Fierce Characteristics
Marine mammals are characterized as 'queer' not just in identity, but in their non-normative ways of relating, parenting, and surviving outside of human-imposed social structures.
Their 'fierceness' is a necessary response to survival within militarized and extractive contexts, where their very existence is an act of resistance against environmental destruction.
Accountability to Social Justice
Intersecting Movements
The work is deeply rooted in and accountable to specific social justice frameworks:
Black Liberation: Drawing parallels between the Middle Passage and the ocean as a site of both ancestral trauma and potential transformation.
Disability Justice: Valuing different ways of moving, breathing, and sensing the world.
Queer and Gender Justice: Challenging the binary and patriarchal structures that govern both human society and our view of nature.
Pedagogical Structure
Thematic Movements
The book is structured around nineteen 'movements' rather than traditional chapters, reflecting a rhythmic, non-linear approach to learning.
Themes include Breathing, Remembering, and Collaborating, which serve as both biological necessities and political practices.
Activation: The final segment provides guided activities intended to move the reader from theory to praxis, encouraging individual and group engagement with the meditations.
Authorial Context: Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Intellectual Genealogy
The author, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, identifies as a queer Black feminist love evangelist, framing her work as a devotional practice.
This text builds upon her 'poetic trilogy':
Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity: Exploring the desire for freedom.
M Archive: After the End of the World: A speculative look at what survives the apocalypse.
Dub: Finding Ceremony: A rhythmic exploration of ancestry and sound.
Her work synthesizes archival research, poetry, and marine biology to offer Black feminist lessons for the current climate and social crisis.
The Concept of 'Undrowning'
Metaphor for Survival
'Undrowning' is the core metaphor for the capacity to survive and thrive amidst systems that are designed to suffocate or submerge the marginalized.
It references the biological reality of marine mammals—land-dwelling creatures that returned to the sea—as a template for ancestral resilience.
Critique of Scientific Taxonomy
Naming and Power
The text critiques Western scientific taxonomy, which often names marine species after white male 'explorers' who historically participated in colonial and extractive projects.
This critique calls for a reclamation of names and relationships that honor the creatures themselves rather than the humans who claimed to 'discover' them.
Echolocation and Radical Listening
Sensing the Collective
Echolocation is explored as a political tool for 'radical listening.' It is the ability to perceive one's environment through vibration and response, emphasizing that our individual path is determined by the feedback of the collective.
This subverts the Western emphasis on individual 'vision' or 'sight' as the primary mode of knowledge, favoring a more immersive, sonic sense of community.
The Politics of Rest and Refusal
Subverting Capitalist Labor
By observing the resting patterns of whales (such as Sperm whales drifting vertically), the text advocates for 'radical rest' as a form of strikes against the exhaustion of racial capitalism.
Refusal to be constantly productive is presented as a biological necessity for survival and a way to resist being managed as a resource.
Ancestral Evolutionary Solidarity
The Ocean as Archive
The ocean serves as a physical and spiritual archive, holding the history of the Middle Passage alongside the evolutionary history of mammals.
Solidarity is found in the shared ancestry of those who have had to adapt to the deep, establishing a lineage of 'ungovernable' beings who find liberation in the blue space between worlds.