Destruction as care: A vanguard vision of more-than-human flourishing in the Galician monte

In order to live well together on a damaged planet, more-than-human care scholarship argues for mutual care and collaboration between humans and non-humans for common survival. Research in this area accordingly emphasizes the life-affirming dimensions of mutual care relationships, paying comparatively little attention to acts of forceful eradication, killing, and destruction except as harms to be minimized. The Brigadas Deseucaliptizadoras is a network of activists who manually eradicate eucalyptus and acacia in the Galician monte , located in the northwest of Spain, in pursuit of a more diverse and interdependent more-than-human community. Through the lens of sociotechnical imaginaries, this article examines the situated and historically contingent dynamics by which the Brigadas’ practices of destruction are produced as care. Through ethnographic research in two field sites (the Galician villages of Froxán and Lentille), we explore how a vanguard vision of destruction as care embeds notions of greater collective autonomy and Galician independence from the Spanish state while aiming to restore more-than-human interdependencies. This nascent imaginary is constructed through historical accounts, political subjectivities, and diverse forms of knowledge production; standing in opposition to dominant forestry management regimes. The lens of sociotechnical imaginaries allows us to trace how particular practices are produced as care in historically, politically, and geographically situated ways. The article contributes to more-than-human care scholarship by approaching practices of care as contextually-bound products of collective imagination rather than defined by normative prescriptions of what care is and should be, thus opening pathways to engage with actions that are not self-evidently care-ful.