LAUSR

ABSTRACT This article discusses how the politics of dewilding and rewilding interact with biodiversity, cultural diversity, and cultural production. Although dewilding – stripping nature of healthy ecosystems and its various species – is still a widespread practice around the globe, it has a particular relationship with the colonial period. Dewilding under colonialism implies the suppression of the resistance of the colonized as well as the extermination of species, especially of those standing in as metaphors for the resistance of those to be colonized. As a case study, this article analyses the metaphorical perception of the wolf from the colonial period in Britain, Ireland, and the US until today to demonstrate how literature has supported both the extermination and the reinstitution of wolves, and how the trajectory from “dewolfing” to “rewolfing” can potentially benefit both nature and culture.