Jennifer M Atchison

Cultural ecology: emerging human-plant geographies

I Ghostly fl ora? It is several years now since Jones and Cloke noted that, while there had been considerable recent interest in animals and society within human geography and anthropology, ‘fl ora ... remains an even more ghost-like presence in contemporary theoretical approaches’ (Jones and Cloke, 2002: 4; see also Hitchings and Jones, 2004). In this second progress report on cultural ecology, we identify and trace emerging trends in human-plant geographies. Human-plant interactions have been the stuff of cultural ecology since the days of Julian Steward, and many aspects of that tradition are alive and well. Following a previous progress report (Head, 2007), we are not interested in assuming an ontological and unproblematic separation between ‘cultures’ and ‘their [vegetative] environment’ as the basis on which straightforward ‘interactions’ or ‘adaptations’ can be analysed (Blute, 2008). Rather we aim here to elucidate the contributions of relational geographies, sometimes referred to as more than human geographies, to the understanding of humanplant relations (eg, Whatmore, 2002, on soybeans, and Robbins, 2004, on invasive networks). The challenges of global environmental change provide good reasons why such geographies should be nurtured, and why the notion of a clear separation between culture and environment should be long gone. Even a cursory roll call of the pressing issues of the next few decades – food security, biofuels, biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, quality of urban life – immediately involves messy and malleable confi gurations of plants and people. Plants are fundamental players in human lives, providing our food supply and contributing to the air we breathe, and vice versa – humans have transformed many aspects of plant lives. Physical biogeographers now recognize that the vegetation patterns they are studying refl ect both deep time evolutionary pathways and the ‘muddy and indecipherable blur’ of human infl uence (Mackey, 2008: 392). At one level it is puzzling then that humanplant geographies have been less commented on than human-animal geographies. We touch here on several reasons. First, animal geographies have been spurred on by questions of ethics. Between plants and humans, there is arguably a greater ethical distance, and the unit of ethical standing (individual, species,

Eradicating bodies in invasive plant management

It is increasingly acknowledged that invasive plant management, although a significant global issue, is a matter of coexistence rather than control. Nevertheless an adversarial rhetoric dominated by discourses of war and winning persists. This paper focuses on the bodies of plants, the animals with which they become entangled, and the humans who are charged with eradicating them. Plants help to rethink bodily difference beyond the human, extending feminist theories that have contributed to increased recognition of nonhuman difference. Bodies are a barely acknowledged scale of invasive plant management, which is usually conceptualised in landscape terms. Our empirical focus is the eradication of three species in northwestern Australia: Mimosa (Mimosa pigra), Gamba Grass (Andropogon gayanus), and Neem (Azadirachta indica). By paying attention to plant difference and illuminating the experience of invasive plant managers, we show how eradication manages the intersecting timespaces of different bodies in order to stop plants becoming collectives. We identify contradictions in the regulation and application of borders, which are less permeable for some animals than for all humans. We also draw attention to the questions of risk—for humans and others—in the process of killing plants. For embodied geographies, a plant perspective opens up new ways of thinking about bodily boundaries: in particular the individual/collective divide. The implication for invasive plant management is that, even at the eradication end of the spectrum, effective management is an uncertain process that involves living in association with invasive plants rather than living separately from them.

A Fine-Grained Study of the Experience of Drought, Risk and Climate Change Among Australian Wheat Farming Households

An increasing body of research shows that climate change takes expression in local processes such as increased climatic variability; climatic risk is managed in relation to other risks in agricultural households; and adaptation is an everyday social process as much as a question of new crop varieties. Understanding how farming households experience the interactions of climatic variability, multifaceted risk, adaptation, and everyday social processes is crucial to informed policy development. A study of New South Wales wheat farming households during the failed harvest seasons of 2006–2007 and 2007–2008 provided a unique opportunity to examine how they approached unprecedented drought in relation to both past and future changes. We analyzed their experience of the hybrid assemblage comprising risk, climate change, and a deregulated policy environment in their everyday lives and individual bodies. These farmers are not adapting to future conditions but are in continuous interplay among multiple temporalities, including memories of the past. They see themselves as adapting in situ rather than relocating northwards with predicted rainfall movements. Capacities to deal with risk and uncertainty vary with a range of social and locational factors, tending to coalesce into patterns of vulnerability and resilience that offer strong predictors as to which households are most likely to be sustainable in the longer term.

Vegetal politics: belonging, practices and places

Cultural geography has a long and proud tradition of research into human–plant relations. However, until recently, that tradition has been somewhat disconnected from conceptual advances in the social sciences, even those to which cultural geographers have made significant contributions. With a number of important exceptions, plant studies have been less explicitly part of more-than-human geographies than have animal studies. This special issue aims to redress this gap, recognising plants and their multiple engagements with and beyond humans. Plants are not only fundamental to human survival, they play a key role in many of the most important environmental political issues of the century, including biofuels, carbon economies and food security. In this introduction, we explore themes of belonging, practices and places, as discussed in the contributing papers. Together, the papers suggest new kinds of ‘vegetal politics’, documenting both collaborative and conflictual relations between humans, plants and others. They open up new spaces of political action and subjectivity, challenging political frames that are confined to humans. The papers also raise methodological questions and challenges for future research. This special issue grew out of sessions we organised at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting in New York in 2012.

Stomatal parameters and atmospheric change since 7500 years before present: evidence from Eremophila deserti (Myoporaceae) leaves from the Flinders Ranges region, South Australia.

Stomatal parameters (stomatal density, stomatal index and stomatal conductance) have been widely used to study vegetation response to long-term CO2 change, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere. We tested the applicability of the methods and interpretations to Australian desert vegetation, by using Eremophila deserti A.Cunn. (Myoporaceae) leaves. Subfossil samples dated at 7500 years before present and 3700 years before present from Leporillus species (stick-nest rat) middens from the Flinders Ranges were compared with herbarium and modern samples from the area. Stomatal density and stomatal conductance are problematic in their application to this species, probably because of the effect of the moisture regime on epidermal cell size. Stomatal index, which takes some account of independent variations in cell size, did allow the differentiation of long-term trends. In contrast to most other studies, these trends show an increase in stomatal index with increasing CO2, particularly over the last century. From 7500 years before present until about 1950, it is unclear whether CO2 was the most influential among a complex set of factors including different aspects of the moisture regime. In recent decades, the influence of CO2, as demonstrated statistically, accounts for most but not all the observed variation.

Archaeobotany in Australia and New Guinea: practice, potential and prospects

Abstract Archaeobotany is the study of plant remains from archaeological contexts. Despite Australasian research being at the forefront of several methodological innovations over the last three decades, archaeobotany is now a relatively peripheral concern to most archaeological projects in Australia and New Guinea. In this paper, many practicing archaeobotanists working in these regions argue for a more central role for archaeobotany in standard archaeological practice. An overview of archaeobotanical techniques and applications is presented, the potential for archaeobotany to address key historical research questions is indicated, and initiatives designed to promote archaeobotany and improve current practices are outlined.

Country and garden Ethnobotany, archaeobotany and Aboriginal landscapes near the Keep River, northwestern Australia

We examine spatial and temporal variability in Aboriginal plant use in the Keep River region, northwestern Australia, using ethnobotanical and archaeobotanical evidence. The concepts of country and garden, and domain, domus and domiculture (after Chase), are used to problematize important variables such as scale, boundedness and landscape transformation, and incorporate notions of social space. We focus on three main examples: yam patches, fruit trees and a modern domestic garden. The interplay between social and ecological processes, and the characteristics of human intervention, are examined in each case. In combination with archaeological data relating to fruit seed processing, we discern patterns of plant manipulation over a period of 3500 years, focusing on the changes associated with European arrival.

Entangled invasive lives: Indigenous invasive plant management in Northern Australia

Abstract This article explores the entanglement of two kinds of invasive lives in northern Australia: invasive plants, and the enduring life of the unfinished colonial project, which continues to have implications for indigenous peoples. In the extensive indigenous lands of Australias tropical north, communities have increasing responsibility for invasive plant management among other pressing land management tasks. In a context of climate change and novel ecosystems, these entanglements exacerbate environmental management challenges in the tropical savanna and affect indigenous livelihoods. Drawing on arguments that it is necessary to literally speak novel ecologies, we here enunciate and describe a novel ecological assemblage we call Indigenous Invasive Plant Management (IIPM). Historical accounts and contemporary ethnography (semi‐structured interviews and participant observation undertaken in 2010–2013) show a lingering colonial heritage in the ways that IIPM is entwined with tenure and governance issues, and in its everyday practice. These findings illustrate how IIPM can risk being a form of continuing dispossession as well as having good potential outcomes.

Experiments in co-existence: the science and practices of biocontrol in invasive species management

This paper concerns the science and practices of biocontrol in invasive species management. Although biosecurity scholars have argued for looser, more flexible approaches to securing life, this work is yet to examine how life might be lived where invasive species are entrenched. Here, I bring social and cultural scholarship to bear on ecological and conservation science perspectives quagmired in questions of human intervention and risk, with the purpose of shifting debate toward questions of better care in ‘living with’ invasive life. Building on Mols idea of ‘tinkering’ as embodied and continuous adjustment, and Stengers approach to experimentation within science, this paper illustrates the practices of biocontrol as experiments in co-existence with invasive life. My empirical focus is invasive plant management in Northern Australia where biocontrol is practiced to manage significant threats to biodiversity from invasive plants. I show that biocontrol practices are diverse and require multiple agencies as well as an acknowledgment of substantial risk. In the ongoing challenge of living with invasive species, the implication is that control is not imposed but can emerge through ongoing embodied and reflexive learning with nonhumans. As experiment, biocontrol is also implicated in the production of new biocommunities—an emerging area requiring further research attention.

Local Knowledge, Use and Management of Ethnovarieties of Araucaria angustifolia (Bert.) Ktze. in the Plateau of Santa Catarina, Brazil

This study examines the human use and management of Araucaria angustifolia ethnovarieties from Santa Catarina, Brazil, and contributes to what is known about the ethnobotany of Araucaria species. The available literature on varietal differences of A. angustifolia is somewhat divergent, and there are currently no ethnobotanical studies on the intraspecific variation and management of this species. The study examined local knowledge and sociocultural and economic values of A. angustifolia varieties to understand how the varieties are managed and how management practices are influencing the conservation of the species. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 informants (identified using the snowball method) in the Painel and Urubici municipalities. Participants identified 12 local varieties, four of which were cited by more than one informant. Characteristic differences include size, color and flavor of the nut-like seeds (pinhão), and most importantly, season of maturation of the cone. The “Caiová” variety was preferred for its bigger, firmer, and sweeter seeds that are considered easier to peel and last longer in storage. Even though there is some interest in developing management practices that favor some varieties in order to guarantee year-round production, seedlings are commonly removed. This management practice is most likely a response to current regulations that prohibit cutting down adult trees. The results of this study have important implications for the relationship between the knowledge of A. angustifolia practices and the current legal framework that protects this species. A more detailed understanding of the relevant ethnobotanical knowledge is required in order to establish the best practices for sustainable use of A. angustifolia and its varietal diversity and to support the communities that depend on this species as a resource.ResumoEste estudo estende o conhecimento etnobotânico das espécies de Araucária existente, examinando uso e manejo de etnovariedades, de Araucaria angustifolia, de Santa Catarina, Brasil. Apesar da divergência na literatura a respeito do número de variedades, não existem estudos etnobotânicos dirigidos sobre o tema. Neste estudo, o conhecimento local, valor sociocultural e econômico de variedades são caracterizadas, a fim de compreender tanto como essas variedades são manejadas, e como este manejo está influenciando a conservação da espécie. Entrevistas semi-estruturadas foram realizadas com trinta e três informantes nos municípios de Painel e Urubici, identificados pelo método snowball. Os participantes identificaram 12 variedades locais, quatro das quais foram citadas por mais de um informante. Características diferem quanto ao tamanho, cor e sabor das sementes (pinhão) e, principalmente, quanto à época de maturação da pinha. A variedade “Caiová” foi preferida por possuir pinhões maiores, mais firmes, mais doces, melhores de descascar e de maior tempo de armazenagem. Embora haja o interesse de desenvolver práticas de manejo para favorecer algumas variedades, a fim de garantir a produção durante todo o ano, as plântulas são comumente eliminadas. Esta prática de manejo ocorre provavelmente como uma resposta as legislações e regulamentações que proíbem o corte de espécimes adultos. Uma compreensão mais detalhada sobre o relevante conhecimento etnobotânico é necessária a fim de estabelecer melhores práticas de uso sustentável relativa a esta espécie e toda a sua diversidade varietal, bem como apoiar as comunidades que dependem dela como um recurso.