Salazar Parreñas, Juno. Decolonizing Extinction: The Work of Care in Orangutan Rehabilitation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018, 288 pages

Juno Salazar Parreñas explores the theory of decolonization in Sarawak, Malaysia, a territory shaped by colonial legacies and postcolonial institutions. This book analyzes the politics of extinction from the feminist perspective of gender, sexuality, and social inequalities between humans and nonhumans (primarily orangutans but also turtles, crocodiles, sun bears as well as microbes and other biological agents and natural substances like rocks, trees, forest, etcetera). The author focuses on the continued colonialism of the region and its impact on humans, particularly displaced Indigenous people residing in Sarawak, and nonhumans, particularly displaced orangutans. After conducting participant observation for a period of two years in two wildlife centres in Sarawak, the Lundu and Batu Wildlife Centres, Parreñas suggests that decolonization should not be subject to a predetermined conclusion but concerned with processes and experimentations, particularly those that prioritize the well-being of nonhuman others. Rather than fearing the extinction of specific species, Parreñas proposes individuals to consider the power relations taking place between humans and nonhumans, especially regarding issues of life and death. The author’s objective is to illustrate how important differences and interdependencies across kinds are within a historical context of colonialism, mobility, and refuge. As such, Parreñas’ monograph is an interesting and valuable work since her approach pushes the boundaries of interdependencies by persuading the reader to focus on the relationships toward nonhuman others. More precisely, she suggests readers consider the risk of humans and nonhumans living together, even though humans may risk their own lives in doing so. This monograph is divided into three sections and structured over four timescales related to affective encounters between humans and nonhumans. The timescales are recorded chronologically and refer to interdependencies of places and memory. The first part addresses how social relations between humans and nonhumans are shaped by both colonial hierarchies and the intersectionalities of race, gender, sexuality, and species. The second part refers to enclosures as understood, lived, enacted, and contested in everyday life by both wildlife species and Indigenous caretakers. The last part reflects on the futures for humans and nonhuman beings. Mostly, these chapters examine the double standard that orangutans face by being perceived as both assets for profit and agents of liberatory decolonization. This last part also questions the futures of nonhuman others such as local microbes and other biological agents, like rocks, trees, forests, etcetera. Parreñas begins with the daily work undertaken by Barbara Harrison with orangutans between 1956 and 1967 in her home in Sarawak as part of a rehabilitation experiment of the Sarawak museum run by Barbara’s husband, Tom Harrison. With the help of local labour, Barbara managed a domestic laboratory housing with displaced and orphaned orangutans. She applied the method of “ape motherhood” to teach orangutans to live independently, while living together with human caretakers, a method that become replaced by more current ideas of “tough love.” For Barbara, this interspecies experiment represented the opportunity to engage with the production of both specific forms of social relations and modern scientific knowledge, since, for human caretakers, the affective encounters with orangutans imply new forms of wage labour. Barbara’s work took place during the period of political transition of Sarawak from the British empire to the federal state of Malaysia, a period marked by colonial hierarchies, political economy, and postcolonial conditions of labour. The private-public domain prevailing in Barbara’s rehabilitation experiment is contrasted in the second chapter by the public setting of the Lundu Wildlife Centre in Sarawak. Here, the book addresses the affective feelings between living/non-living bodies. The bodily presence experienced between and among humans and nonhuman beings represents a valuable marker involving specific geography, space, …