Post-ethno-botanic inquiry for researching plant-human relations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7577/rerm.6235Keywords:
Plant-human relations, ethnobotanic as methodology, multispecies entanglements, post qualitative inquiryAbstract
Plants are having a moment in contemporary research from the intelligence of mycelial networks to the communicative life of ancient forests, ‘mother trees,’ fungi, and lichens. This paper explores this vegetal turn through a collaborative inquiry in which each author brings situated experiences of human–plant relations. As scientists and educators, we found ourselves unlearning the colonial, anthropocentric, and positivist legacies that have long shaped plant studies. Through this slow unlearning, from botany to ethnobotany and now toward what we call post-ethnobotany, we learn to listen differently to plants, to place, to people, to material affects, and to the more-than-human stories that move through them. Our aim is to decolonise ethnobotany through post-qualitative and posthuman approaches that recognise plants as active participants in multispecies ecologies rather than isolated specimens. Building on work mapping relational vegetal ontologies, we extend toward post-ethnobotanical inquiry grounded in symbiotic, entangled, and reciprocal understandings of plant life.
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