Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants in Science and Inquiry

Oct 08, 2022 Amanda rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: pop-sci, for-book-club, bio-autobio-memoir, other-nonfiction

I read this book for my office's virtual book club, though it had been on my to-read list for some time before that. It had a widely varying reception among all the readers in the club, which was especially interesting because we all work in some capacity for a conservation organization and Some were singing its praises and calling it "revolutionary" and others downright hated it or couldn't finish it. I had mixed feelings about it, but honestly think it's worth reading just for the discussion v I read this book for my office's virtual book club, though it had been on my to-read list for some time before that. It had a widely varying reception among all the readers in the club, which was especially interesting because we all work in some capacity for a conservation organization and Some were singing its praises and calling it "revolutionary" and others downright hated it or couldn't finish it. I had mixed feelings about it, but honestly think it's worth reading just for the discussion value alone. Even though I wouldn't say I enjoyed all of it and I disagreed with a number of points that Dr. Kimmerer makes, it was a highly reflective experience and worthwhile read, especially if you have people to bounce the ideas off of afterwards.

Her point in the first chapter and throughout the book about how we can move toward ecological and cultural sustainability without the ability to imagine what that path looks like really resounded with me. Having come from an academic background in biology, I really feel this. It's so easy to feel hopeless about the future of the planet when you've studied the many, many ways we're messing it up. The overall hopeful tone of the book was refreshing, although I found it really sad that her experiences of academic plant science started off so narrow and clinical.

Maybe it has gotten better in the intervening decades or maybe I was just lucky in where I studied, but natural history was held up as an important part of science in the academic circles I moved in. Questions of the relationships between species and their communication was the norm, not the exception. Plenty of other students and professors recognized and spoke of the beauty of plants, even if their papers weren't directly about that. I don't think that viewpoint is exclusive to traditional knowledge, but I agree that it's a valuable part of a holistic understanding of botany.

However, as you might imagine, I disagree with her thoughts on the "scientific worldview". I don't think "interpreting science... to reinforce reductionist, materialist economic and political agendas" constitutes a scientific worldview. I'd say that they can be and often are coupled in Western culture, but that is more an artefact of both being dominant modes of thinking in said culture and conflating the two is disingenuous. I don't think a scientific worldview comes with promoting a specific political agenda, except perhaps evidence-based decision making. When I think of a scientific worldview, I think of curiosity, skepticism, as well as valuing understanding and knowledge creation and sharing. In an age of so much distrust of experts and anti-scientific sentiment, I don't think her stance on this is helpful, and undercuts her message about promoting scientific communication and literacy.

I think what the book was missing most was a level of class-based or more generalized social analysis. While I completely understand that her focus was on Indigenous issues, and rightly so, many of her points were undercut by not engaging with the reality of power differences between individuals. The idea she expounds that "refusal to participate is a moral choice" so easily falls in line with toxic ideas of individualism. In western society a lot of moral choices are positioned as individual decisions, while in reality they are made for us. Only privilege and lucky circumstances can give one the ability to make some of those choices. Making these out to be issues for the individual stymies efforts to put responsibility where it actually belongs, on the institutions that shape our world. Individual choices on environmental issues represent drops in a bucket relative to the kinds of large-scale social change that needs to happen on an institutional level.

However, I think the book raises lots of excellent points for those working in environmental fields and also lay people who are simply interested in these issues and in learning more about Indigenous perspectives on them. It certainly gave me a lot to think about. ...more

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Sep 18, 2017 Kathleen (itpdx) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, lwv-book-group

Robin Wall Kimmerer describes herself as "an ecologist, a writer, a mother, as a traveler between scientific and traditional ways of knowing". This is a collection of her essays that weave all of these together. I especially enjoyed a couple of the pieces. "Learning the Language of Animacy" describes her experience trying to learn the language of her grandfather. She says that 70% of the words in the language are verbs. That certainly calls for a different way of experiencing the world. "Witness ...more

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Mar 01, 2024 laurena rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ecology, activism, reciprocality, human-plant-relationships

fantastic. so many others have written much more extensive accounts.

I love reading it out loud and highly recommend doing so. The poetry, science, meaning behind the words can all be savoured and shared.

A gift. And she has lovely things to say about gifts.

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