Time is an ally of the invader: Alien species futures

This paper explores the production of “knowledge of the future” in discourses on invasive alien species. Through a close-reading of Norwegian guidelines for risk assessment of invasive alien species, the paper investigates the consequences of these future oriented practices, the role they play in turning the alien species from uncontrollable threats into manageable entities. The paper discusses the temporal scales on which alien species are understood, and how temporal understandings in the alien species discourse tie in with and differ from those of other environmental problems.