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Subtle Agroecologies
FIGURE 18.1 Buddha resisting the temptation of Mara. (Image credit: Exotic India Art.)
being and becoming-with to describe this interconnectedness as a mode of being where ‘nothing
makes itself’, rather, ‘we are worlding-with, in company’ (Haraway, 2017: M25). Maria Puig
de la Bellacasa refects on such naturecultural thinking as emerging through ‘knots of relations
involving humans, nonhumans, and physical entanglements of matter and meaning’ (Puig de la
Bellacasa, 2017: 141). Addressing the feelingful body as one with the thinking mind, Weber calls
for a position of ‘enlivenment’ where thought and practical action are reanimated with ‘life’ and
‘aliveness’(Weber, 2019: 11). Minna Salami presents ‘exousiance’ as ‘the catalytic power of being
and becoming together with everything else that is being and becoming’ (Salami, 2020: 1–2). This
power of aliveness is what we as humans share with every living entity, a power which arises from
source and has the capacity for integrating social change with ecological restoration.
Sympoiesis interweaves the concept of the convivial, which also invokes the expression of interrelationship with its Latin roots of con ‘with’ and vivere ‘to live’. The convivial guides us towards
an embodied ethics where ‘we creatively and autonomously live, work and relate to each other in the
everyday life’ (Ballantyne-Brodie, 2018: 1034–1035). A convivial praxis attends to the larger whole
by animating inclusive cultural spaces where we all, human and other-than-human, can experience,
recover and respond within a continuous intra-acting with the matter and life processes of the world.
Within forest ecology, refugia are spaces for habitat restoration through the revival of ecological
and agricultural biodiversity (Barthel et al., 2013). Inspired by the work of Anna Tsing (Tsing et al.,
2017), Haraway reframes bio-cultural refugia as places of naturecultural resurgence for the revival
and fourishing of ways of living that have been forgotten, denied or subjugated (Haraway, 2015).
For us to become more wholly human, we are called into a radical conviviality of co-existence and
responsiveness with each other and the other-than-human world.
RE-COGNISING RITUAL
Ritual has the potential to manifest bio-cultural refugia as collective gatherings that are inclusive of
all inhabitants of a place by creating bounded space and time to explore, open to and cultivate new
forms of interrelationship that are non-hierarchical and connecting across differences. Ritual practice has been embedded within the making of naturecultures since the birth of humanity as a cultural
form for generative sympoietic interaction (Grimes, 2015; Turner, 1969). Affrming the role of ritual
as an ecological and participatory practice of life, Ronald Grimes defnes it as ‘the basic social act,
the fabricator, the device for world-and meaning-making’ (Grimes, 2015: 2). As performative acts,
Subtle Agroecologies
FIGURE 18.1 Buddha resisting the temptation of Mara. (Image credit: Exotic India Art.)
being and becoming-with to describe this interconnectedness as a mode of being where ‘nothing
makes itself’, rather, ‘we are worlding-with, in company’ (Haraway, 2017: M25). Maria Puig
de la Bellacasa refects on such naturecultural thinking as emerging through ‘knots of relations
involving humans, nonhumans, and physical entanglements of matter and meaning’ (Puig de la
Bellacasa, 2017: 141). Addressing the feelingful body as one with the thinking mind, Weber calls
for a position of ‘enlivenment’ where thought and practical action are reanimated with ‘life’ and
‘aliveness’(Weber, 2019: 11). Minna Salami presents ‘exousiance’ as ‘the catalytic power of being
and becoming together with everything else that is being and becoming’ (Salami, 2020: 1–2). This
power of aliveness is what we as humans share with every living entity, a power which arises from
source and has the capacity for integrating social change with ecological restoration.
Sympoiesis interweaves the concept of the convivial, which also invokes the expression of interrelationship with its Latin roots of con ‘with’ and vivere ‘to live’. The convivial guides us towards
an embodied ethics where ‘we creatively and autonomously live, work and relate to each other in the
everyday life’ (Ballantyne-Brodie, 2018: 1034–1035). A convivial praxis attends to the larger whole
by animating inclusive cultural spaces where we all, human and other-than-human, can experience,
recover and respond within a continuous intra-acting with the matter and life processes of the world.
Within forest ecology, refugia are spaces for habitat restoration through the revival of ecological
and agricultural biodiversity (Barthel et al., 2013). Inspired by the work of Anna Tsing (Tsing et al.,
2017), Haraway reframes bio-cultural refugia as places of naturecultural resurgence for the revival
and fourishing of ways of living that have been forgotten, denied or subjugated (Haraway, 2015).
For us to become more wholly human, we are called into a radical conviviality of co-existence and
responsiveness with each other and the other-than-human world.
RE-COGNISING RITUAL
Ritual has the potential to manifest bio-cultural refugia as collective gatherings that are inclusive of
all inhabitants of a place by creating bounded space and time to explore, open to and cultivate new
forms of interrelationship that are non-hierarchical and connecting across differences. Ritual practice has been embedded within the making of naturecultures since the birth of humanity as a cultural
form for generative sympoietic interaction (Grimes, 2015; Turner, 1969). Affrming the role of ritual
as an ecological and participatory practice of life, Ronald Grimes defnes it as ‘the basic social act,
the fabricator, the device for world-and meaning-making’ (Grimes, 2015: 2). As performative acts,