“My methodology and research design, rooted in a flat ontology, led me to include plants as participants alongside the human gardener. But how was I to account for plants and their agency? What might count as evidence of vegetal politics?”
In a new article titled, Growing Methods: Developing a Methodology for Identifying Plant Agency and Vegetal Politics in the City, newly appointed CQ Fellow Dr. Sarah Elton proposes a methodology to account for plant agency in gardens and to identify vegetal politics. Emerging from her CQ Dissertation Award-winning doctoral work, Dr. Elton describes how a methodological shift to understanding plant communities as a unit of analysis is central to theorising plants as political actors in cities that support health.
A recording of Dr. Elton’s presentation for the CQ Public Seminar series in 2020, and other past seminars, is available for viewing on our website and on YouTube.
Read more work from our CQ network of scholars here.
