Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20831
Title: | Passive Flora? Reconsidering Nature's Agency through Human-Plant Studies (HPS) | Contributor(s): | Ryan, John C (author) | Publication Date: | 2012 | Open Access: | Yes | DOI: | 10.3390/soc2030101 | Handle Link: | https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/20831 | Abstract: | Plants have been-and, for reasons of human sustenance and creative inspiration, will continue to be-centrally important to societies globally. Yet, plants-including herbs, shrubs, and trees—are commonly characterized in Western thought as passive, sessile, and silent automatons lacking a brain, as accessories or backdrops to human affairs. Paradoxically, the qualities considered absent in plants are those employed by biologists to argue for intelligence in animals. Yet an emerging body of research in the sciences and humanities challenges animal-centred biases in determining consciousness, intelligence, volition, and complex communication capacities amongst living beings. In light of recent theoretical developments in our understandings of plants, this article proposes an interdisciplinary framework for researching flora: human-plant studies (HPS). Building upon the conceptual formations of the humanities, social sciences, and plant sciences as advanced by Val Plumwood, Deborah Bird Rose, Libby Robin, and most importantly Matthew Hall and Anthony Trewavas, as well as precedents in the emerging areas of human-animal studies (HAS), I will sketch the conceptual basis for the further consideration and exploration of this interdisciplinary framework. | Publication Type: | Journal Article | Source of Publication: | Societies, 2(3), p. 101-121 | Publisher: | MDPI AG | Place of Publication: | Switzerland | ISSN: | 2075-4698 | Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: | 200525 Literary Theory 200502 Australian Literature (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Literature) 200503 British and Irish Literature |
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: | 470514 Literary theory 470502 Australian literature (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander literature) 470504 British and Irish literature |
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: | 959999 Cultural Understanding not elsewhere classified 969999 Environment not elsewhere classified 970120 Expanding Knowledge in Language, Communication and Culture |
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: | 280116 Expanding knowledge in language, communication and culture 280114 Expanding knowledge in Indigenous studies |
Peer Reviewed: | Yes | HERDC Category Description: | C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal |
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Appears in Collections: | Journal Article School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences |
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