A Review of Luci Attala, Louise Steel (eds.), Plants Matter: Exploring the Becomings of Plants and People. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2023, XVIII+222 p.

Abstract

This collection of essays reviews current trends in plant studies within the new materialism(s) framework. The authors analyse the relationship between plants and humans, examining how their material properties shape human civilisation. Each of the chapters aims to shift the focus away from an anthropocentric perspective and present plants as full participants in the interaction: the mutual domestication of humans and plants during the Neolithic Revolution; edibility and potential medicinal use of plants as an evolutionary strategy; the potential of indigenous representations of plants for academic discourse; agency, the sensory world and memory of plant organisms. Some cases offer a more familiar perspective: for example, the cosmology of the Kogi people of Colombia, which finds parallels in representations of the World Tree, or British amateur gardening as a well-being practice. The review presents some of the theoretical premises that underpinned the collection (the green turn, new materialism, biocultural hotspots theory), comments on the main concepts, and provides a brief critical overview of the chapters, whose disciplinary repertoire extends from archaeology to science and technology studies, from ethnobotany to environmental history, and from philosophy to plant physiology. Particular attention is paid to questions of the agency of the plants and of the interaction of indigenous and scientific knowledge in contemporary research.