It was a thrill to participate in this panel in September 2025. |||
Recent scholarly developments involving plants signal an enduring ‘plant
turn’ across arts, humanities and social sciences (Gibson, 2018; Ernwein,
Palmer and Ginn, 2021; Lawrence, 2022; Gutierrez, 2023), with
geographers often leading (Head and Atchison, 2009). Ontological,
epistemological and ethical considerations involving plant agency and
human-plant relations remain key, from a n analytical lineage of
‘Aristotle-Enlightenment-thought-Heidegger-Foucault-posthumanism-whatev
ercomes-next’ (Marder, 2013; Nealon, 2016; Coccia, 2019; Ernwein, Palmer
and Ginn, 2021, p. 19), to the contesting histories of plant movements and
vegetal politics embedded within colonial plantations and botanic gardens
across wider imperialism (Brockway, 1979; Pawson, 2008; Baber, 2016;
Barua, 2023). Further investigations have foregrounded the materiality of
plants: their capacities and potentials that centre them in the
more-than-human political economy and social life, such as in agricultural
production, conservation practices and urban ‘nature-based solutions’
(Fleming, 2017; Argüelles and March, 2022; Margulies, 2023; Ernwein and
Palmer, 2024); an d the mundane and everyday stories about ‘how vegetal
life is experienced, imagined and valued’ (Phillips and Atchison, 2020;
Lawrence, 2022, p. 632).
In response to the Annual Conference theme of Creativity, we invite
presentations on plants that have used creative methodological strategies.
In this session w e are interested in considering how ‘plant humanities’
approaches are in conversation with the ‘creative turn’ in geography
(Hawkins, 2018). The expanded field often features cross-institutional
collaborations and partnerships (Dumbarton Oaks and JSTOR Labs, n.d.;
Driver and Cornish, 2021; Carabelli and Beach, 2023); experimentations
with writing, artistic, archival and more-than-human participation (Garascia,
2019; Ryan, 2020; Bastian and Hawitt, 2022; Ginn and Connor, 2023;
Beach, 2024); and practice-based scholarship beyond geography’s
disciplinary borders, often featuring collectives that confront colonialism’s
enduring horrors (Burns, 2022; Ashhab, Demczuk and Ribas, 2024;
Magnetic Topographies, 2025). The session will explore voices, knowledges,
histories, geographies and beings that may be silenced or marginalised in
dominant strands of vegetal studies, and considers methodological,
theoretical and analytical challenges posed when engaging with plants.