Econologariums

This essay examines the significance to science fiction and to economic discourses of what Samuel Delany called ecologariums: mini-world model ecologies. Ubiquitous in sf, ecologariums have a real-world presence in the form of ecotrons (in research facilities) and terraria (in the home), while invoking abstract practices of (eco)system modeling in economic and environmentalist discourses. I make three main points about the ecologariums of Delany’s “The Star Pit” (1967) and the “dino-arium” of Stephen Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993). First, ecologariums can be reconceived as econologariums: they incorporate, and often challenge, neoclassical economic models and modeling. Second, Delany’s and Spielberg’s econologariums invite a complex adaptive systems (CAS) approach, which means that they overlap with heterodox economic theories that also employ an evolutionary/CAS approach to challenge the equilibrium models characteristic of today’s mainstream economic thought. Third, econologariums exercise a pedagogic function that speaks to the critical models we bring to the analysis of sf at a historical moment when the study of ecologies, and ecologies in crisis, has never been so urgent.