Vol. 1 No. 1 (2024)
Research Articles

Plantiness, Multispecies Conviviality and Changing Human-Plant Geographies

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  • Subarna De
Subarna De
University of Groningen
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3197/whppp.63845494909707

Published 2024-04-15

Keywords

  • Decolonial Bioregionalism,
  • Human-Plant Geographies,
  • Plantiness,
  • Multispecies Conviviality,
  • Vegetal Political Ecology,
  • Indigenous Knowledge,
  • Kodagu/Coorg,
  • Decolonisation
    • ...More
    Less

How to Cite

De, Subarna. 2024. “Plantiness, Multispecies Conviviality and Changing Human-Plant Geographies”. Plant Perspectives 1 (1):71-95. https://doi.org/10.3197/whppp.63845494909707.

Copyright (c) 2024 Subarna De

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The essay examines changing human-plant geographies in Kodagu, situated in the Western Ghats in southern India. Paying attention to Kodagu helps investigate how plantiness impacts resource politics in indigenous landscapes across pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial timeframes. This essay will study Sarita Mandanna’s Tiger Hills (2010) and Kavery Nambisan’s The Scent of Pepper (2010) from a bioregional perspective to understand the importance of native plants, forests, vegetal and feral spaces across Kodagu’s shifting societies and timeframes and examine how human-plant encounters redefine the role of plants in Kodagu’s more-than-human geographies. With a particular focus on the Kodava ritual of Kailpodh, this essay will investigate how humans often classify plants as native, invasive, weeds, sacred and unwanted, depending on their impact on human social life, and how ritualising plants such as rajakirita (Gloriosa superba) helps to reinhabit Kodagu and deepens the Kodava human-plant interaction across space and time.

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