“The Edibility Approach”: Using Edibility to Explore Relationships, Plant Agency and the Porosity of Species’ Boundaries

Abstract

In light of correspondence between interdisciplinary representations of plant abilities, this paper raises questions about plant/human-animal relationships and in so doing problematizes the category/species boundaries that both establish and characterize the differences between plant and animal. Using a more than human (Cf. Whatmore 2002; Head et al., 2012) multi-species (Kirksey and Helmreich 2010) framework that rejects reductionist methods in favour of a relational, materialities approach; an alternative method to consider plant/human-animal relationships that focuses on edibility and the consequences of ingestion is proposed. Termed the Edibility Approach, this method foregrounds the ways that plants influence human bodies as a result of their edibility and considers the corollary processes that occur during in-gestion and after digestion. Interrogation of the social effects of eating plants and the part plants play in inciting behaviours as if from "the inside" of bodies adds a nuanced direction to the study of plant/human-animal relationships. This phyto-centric framing offers a new botanical ontology and conceptual tool. By focusing on the dependencies between species, it proposes that there is a multi-vocal embodied dialogue occurring between species through digestion .