Living with plants and the exploration of botanical encounter within human geographic research practice

Passive Flora? Reconsidering Nature’s Agency through Human-Plant Studies (HPS)

“…Through the premise of connectivity between plants and society, HPS would provide a framework for conceptualizing plants as active partners in knowledge production and cultural practices, -as social beings with agentive efficacy‖ ( [69], p. 183). HPS would investigate plants and everyday human-plant interactions-for example, South African botanical species in Western Australia (see Figure 5)-towards a reconsideration of -planthood.‖ Hence, HPS would align closely with the theoretical advances of the ecological humanities, as well as the methodological precedents of ecocriticism [41]; ecocultural studies [17]; human-animal studies [58]; human-plant geographies [10,11]; multispecies ethnography [69]; and biosemiotics [49,79]. Importantly, this framework would look towards Indigenous knowledges in reconceptualizing these divides [7,80].…”

“…Although represented as passive elements of the environment, plants are also the quintessence of dynamic nature, epitomizing the ancient notion physis: -Vegetation is something passive in contemporary understanding: to be in a vegetative state is to be without mind. Yet the root meaning of the word ‗vegetative' is associated with activity and enlivened animation‖ ( [11], p. 15). Indeed, the late 14th century word -vegetative‖ suggested -endowed with the power of growth,‖ but it has been associated pathologically with brain death only since 1893 [37].…”

“…Plumwood's call is perhaps nowhere more relevant than to the study of plants-organisms conventionally regarded as automatons; as voiceless objects worked over by animate agents such as animals; as mindless constituents of the biosphere or landscape; and as mere material for physical and aesthetic consumption [11,12,[22][23][24]. As Matthew Hall argues trenchantly in Plants as Persons: A Philosophical Botany (2011), plants are regarded ordinarily in scientific and social scientific discourses as passive, and are assumed to lack intelligence, consciousness, and behavior-those qualities defining animality [12,[25][26][27].…”

Towards a corporeal aesthetics of plants: Ethnographies of embodied appreciation along the wildflower trail

“…The proposed context of 'cultural botany', in which the research is situated, expands upon recent theoretical and practical work in cultural ecology (Head 2007;Head & Muir 2007;Head & Atchison 2009), human-plant geographies (Hitchings 2003;Hitchings & Jones 2004;Seddon 2005) and ethnobotany (for example Martin 1995;Cotton 1996). The 'everlasting' and 'orchid effects' are modes of visually interpreting plants.…”

Introduction

“…As the relationship between people and plants is undermined-through decreasing personal experience and correspondingly through the loss of knowledge of their forms, their uses, and their names-so too is lost a sense of connection and appreciation of the fundamental place they hold in sustaining both ecological and social worlds (Carlson and Maffi 2004;Hitchings and Jones 2004;Hunn 2014). As Gagliano asks, "How can any society recognize that plant conservation is one of humanity's most crucial issues, when it literally cannot 'see' plants?…”