Plant Consciousness Commentary: The distinctive capacities of plants: re-thinking difference via invasive species pt1

The distinctive capacities of plants: re-thinking difference via invasive species pt.1

While I thought we would only be talking about what it means to be an invasive species, the first part of this paper took us into an unexpected exploration into the capacities of plants. More specifically, what it means to be plant as an agent of your own life.

We’ve been down this rabbit-hole many times with so many other papers and studies, but this feels different. This feels like really “recognizing” a plant for who ki is, not who ki is in relation to humans, in order to understand their beingness in their own terms. 

Part 1 focuses on how “The need for diverse scholarship on our relationships with plants has never been greater, but we are hampered by an entrenched intellectual heritage. The difference between animals and plants, and the lower status of the latter, has been one of the defining characteristics of Western thought since Aristotle defined animals as those who move and plants as those who do not.” It is time to challenge the status quo.

What capacities or characteristics make a plant a plant? Could you describe them without comparing kin to humans? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Topics Covered about capacities of plants

  • Human-plant relations from various perspectives
  • Reclaiming indifference
  • Why we shouldn’t lump ‘nonhumans’ as a singular entity
  • Rethinking identity and subjectivity

Discover the capacities of plants:

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Episodes related to capacities of plants and invasive species

View the paper here

Google Scholar: Head, L., Atchison, J., & Phillips, C. (2015). The distinctive capacities of plants: Re‐thinking difference via invasive species. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 40(3), 399-413.

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