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This book explores the ways that international politics is a form of interspecies politics, one that involves the interactions, ideas, and practices of multiple species, both human and nonhuman, to generate differences and create commonalities. While we frequently think of having an international politics “of” the environment, a deep and thoroughgoing anthropocentrism guides our idea of what political life can be, which prevents us from thinking about a politics “with” the environment. This anthropocentric assumption about politics drives both ecological degradation and deep forms of interhuman injustice and hierarchy.

Interspecies Politics challenges that assumption, arguing that a truly ecological account of interstate life requires us to think about politics as an activity that crosses species lines. It therefore explores a postanthropocentric account of international politics, focusing on a series of cases and interspecies practices in the American borderlands, ranging from the US-Mexico border in southern Texas, to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, to Isle Royale, near the US-Canadian border. The book draws on international relations, environmental political theory, anthropology, and animal studies, to show how key international dimensions of states—sovereignty, territory, security, rights—are better understood as forms of interspecies assemblage that both generate new forms of multispecies inclusion, and structure forms of violence and hierarchy against human and nonhuman alike.

Interwoven Rosewood is a collaborative exploration of the global rosewood trade and its entanglements with Indigenous lifeways, colonial histories, and environmental crises. Co-authored by Julie Velásquez Runk and members of the Wounaan National Congress and its Local Congress of the Majé community, this book traces the story of cocobolo rosewood from Wounaan lands in Panama to international markets, revealing how centuries of settler colonialism and extractive capitalism continue to shape landscapes, livelihoods, and relationships. At its heart, the book is a meditation on well-being and belonging—how people live in relation to land, each other, and the more-than-human world.
 
Drawing on more than a decade of community-based research and six collaborative book workshops, the authors weave together first-person narratives, ecological analysis, historical context, and Indigenous knowledge. The result is a richly textured account that challenges dominant narratives of environmental degradation by centering Wounaan experiences of joy, resistance, and conviviality. The book’s structure reflects its method: interwoven chapters authored or spoken by Wounaan colleagues, grounded in consent protocols and shaped by ancestral storytelling traditions.
 
Accessibly written, Interwoven Rosewood is ideal for courses in environmental conservation, Indigenous studies, anthropology, Latin American studies, and political ecology. With its interdisciplinary reach and classroom-ready discussion questions, the book invites readers to reflect on the global forces behind environmental catastrophe—and the enduring power of Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and becoming.