scholarly journals Monster plants. The vegetal political ecology of Lacandonia schismatica

Author(s):  
Leticia Durand ◽  
Juanita Sundberg

This paper presents a story about a plant – Lacandonia schismatica  – who subverted disciplinary traditions in botany and reconfigured its geopolitical orders of knowledge. To tell this story, we focus on Lacandonia’s plantiness, Lesley Head and colleagues’s (2012) concept to signify each kind of plant’s unique biophysical characteristics, capacities, and potentialities, and through which they co-produce the world. We trace how L. schismatica intervened in, and (re)configured processes of knowledge production, environmental politics, and identity formation in the Lacandon Forest, Chiapas, Mexico, where it was found. Lacandonia’s plantiness came into being through sudden macromutations; this unexpected but viable plant species participated in reviving an old debate in evolutionary biology: macroevolution versus gradualism. We also analyze how Lacandonia’s plantiness compelled shifts in environmental politics in Chiapas and identity formation in Frontera Corozal, the Chol community where L. schismatica was first located. We conclude with a brief reflection on the implications of vegetal ethics for addressing contemporary environmental crises. 

Author(s):  
Brian Willems

A human-centred approach to the environment is leading to ecological collapse. One of the ways that speculative realism challenges anthropomorphism is by taking non-human things to be as valid objects of investivation as humans, allowing a more responsible and truthful view of the world to take place. Brian Willems uses a range of science fiction literature that questions anthropomorphism both to develop and challenge this philosophical position. He looks at how nonsense and sense exist together in science fiction, the way in which language is not a guarantee of personhood, the role of vision in relation to identity formation, the difference between metamorphosis and modulation, representations of non-human deaths and the function of plasticity within the Anthropocene. Willems considers the works of Cormac McCarthy, Paolo Bacigalupi, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Doris Lessing and Kim Stanley Robinson are considered alongside some of the main figures of speculative materialism including Graham Harman, Quentin Meillassoux and Jane Bennett.


2012 ◽  
Vol 279 (1736) ◽  
pp. 2269-2274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Bebber ◽  
Mark A. Carine ◽  
Gerrit Davidse ◽  
David J. Harris ◽  
Elspeth M. Haston ◽  
...  

Discovering biological diversity is a fundamental goal—made urgent by the alarmingly high rate of extinction. We have compiled information from more than 100 000 type specimens to quantify the role of collectors in the discovery of plant diversity. Our results show that more than half of all type specimens were collected by less than 2 per cent of collectors. This highly skewed pattern has persisted through time. We demonstrate that a number of attributes are associated with prolific plant collectors: a long career with increasing productivity and experience in several countries and plant families. These results imply that funding a small number of expert plant collectors in the right geographical locations should be an important element in any effective strategy to find undiscovered plant species and complete the inventory of the world flora.


2015 ◽  
Vol 738-739 ◽  
pp. 1303-1308
Author(s):  
Jing Hua Han ◽  
Ming Jia Li

Plant is not only closely related to human beings’ life, but also an integral part of raw materials in production. Protection of nature and plant resources is an increasingly urgent needs around the world. Cognition is a prerequisite for the protection of plant. But the way of plant science popularization is old, the knowledge of plant is too obscure to the general public. The system of plant science popularization based on the QR code spreads the knowledge of plant with illustrations interactively, to facilitate ordinary users to learn, understand and identify plant species. The article will detail all aspects of development of the system, allowing more scholars to understand the digitized plant science popularization under the new media.


SETTING ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 105-118
Author(s):  
Miguel Angel Gonzales Torres

The spanish government has issued a new law offering spanish nationality to sephardic jews around the world fulfilling some characteristics. This legal movement tries to undo the decree of expulsion of spanish jews in 1492. It has been received with a surprising lack of any significant debate (for or against the law) in Spain. The presentation explores this topic, addressing the emotional reactions towards this in spanish population using materials form a focus group qualitative study and also touches upon the identity problems exposed by the new law and the mechanisms of denial, guilt, reparation, displacement, reactive formation, etc. accompanying the whole process. Events in the distant past, often of a traumatic quality may contribute intensely to the construction of national identity. The healing of old wounds, if possible, might shake our large group structure and lead us to confront a complex reality and to a creative process of new identity formation. A deeper exploration of this situation might also help us to understand better the complex identity problems in many large groups around the world today, linked sometimes to group violence and war and to a general movement towards nationalist and isolationist political choices.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
ENRIQUE LEFF

Abstract The current environmental crisis calls for thinking about the state of the world: the thermodynamic-ecological and symbolic-cultural conditions of organic and human life on the planet. In this regard, it stresses the need to realize the unawareness and life’s unsustainability that humanity has created. In this text I discuss and take a stand about some of the concepts and founding and constitutive research lines of political ecology. In this way I pretend to open dialogue by placing in context some of the principles, ideas, and founding viewpoints of political ecology in Latin America and contrasting them with those from the English-speaking school of thought. I intend not only to establish a political socio-geography, but to question the epistemic core of political ecology, and to stimulate a more cosmopolitan critical thinking in order to be able to face the hegemonic powers that lead the world into social and environmental decay


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-13
Author(s):  
Douglas Amundaray

My interest in politics started during my high school years. At 13 I got hooked on the Venezuelan political scenario with the same intensity as most adults. It is not usual for a teenager to be interested in politics, but the impact of the 1998 Venezuelan presidential election was so significant, the coverage by media so widespread, that it was practically inevitable that I would become enthralled in the outcome. “How does who you are and where you stand in relation to others shape what you know about the world?” By raising this question, David Takacs (2002) introduces the importance of positionality to knowledge production. Positionality provides a way to understand how objective or subjective researchers are during knowledge production (Lave & Wenger, 1991). I can firmly say that the representations portrayed in Venezuela’s mainstream media built up my character, and shaped the analytical approach that I follow today as a scholar.


Koneksi ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 351
Author(s):  
Dwi Sabrina ◽  
Lusia Savitri Retno Utami

No doubt the development of popular culture is very fast in the world, especially the K-Pop industry. Due to rapid development of K-Pop and more fans, innovations have begun to emerge in showing the love of fans towards K-Pop. One of them is K-Pop cover dance activities. This study discusses "The Formation of the Identity of K-Pop Cover Dance Performers in Jakarta" and uses observation and interview data collection methods to find out more about how the formation of K-Pop cover actors' self-identity formation. The theory used is their dramatism on the front stage and also the backstage. In this study the authors can see that each individual communicates themselves in different ways and not all cover dance performers perform their front stage roles up to their backstage life. The formation of the identity of the cover dance actors can change to follow the environment where they are and with whom they communicate. However, not a few also feel that his life as a cover dance on stage imitates and becomes someone else's figure carried to their   daily from various aspects such as family, experience and also the community.Tidak dipungkiri perkembangan budaya populer sangat pesat di dunia terutama K-Pop. Akibat perkembangan K-Pop yang pesat dan penggemarnya yang semakin banyak, mulai bermunculan inovasi dalam menunjukkan kecintaan dari penggemar terhadap K-Pop. Salah satunya adalah kegiatan cover dance K-Pop. Penelitian ini membahas tentang “Pembentukan Identitas Diri Para Pelaku Cover Dance K-Pop di Jakarta” dengan menggunakan teori dramatisme mereka pada front stage dan juga back stage. Dalam penelitian ini penulis dapat melihat bahwa setiap individu mengkomunikasikan diri mereka dengan cara yang berbeda-beda dan tidak semua pelaku cover dance melakukan peran front stage mereka hingga ke kehidupan backstage mereka. Peneliti menggunakan metode pengumpulan data observasi dan wawancara untuk mengetahui lebih dalam mengenai bagaimana pembentukan identitas diri para pelaku cover dance K-Pop. Pembentukan identitas diri para pelaku cover dance dapat berubah mengikuti lingkungan dimana mereka berada dan dengan siapa mereka berkomunikasi. Namun, tidak sedikit juga yang merasa bahwa kehidupannya sebagai seorang cover dance di atas panggung yang meniru dan menjadi sosok orang lain terbawa hingga ke kehidupan sehari-hari mereka dari berbagai macam aspek seperti keluarga, pengalaman dan juga komunitas. 


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