Weeds in action: Vegetal political ecology of unwanted plants

Abstract

This paper presents a vegetal political ecology of weeds. Weeds have barely been analysed in the burgeoning field of ‘more-than-human’ scholarship, this despite their ubiquity and considerable impact on human social life. We review how geographical scholarship has represented weeds’ material and political status: mostly as invasive plants, annoying species in private gardens and spontaneous vegetation in urbanized landscapes. Then, bringing together weed science, agronomic science and the critical geography of agriculture, we show how weeds ecology, weeds management and the environmental problems which weeds are entangled have critically shaped the industrial agriculture paradigm. Three main arguments emerging from our analysis open up new research avenues: weeds’ disruptive character might shape our understanding of human-plant relationships; human-weeds relation in agriculture have non-trivial socio-economic and political implications; and more-than-human approaches, such as vegetal political ecology, might challenge dominant modes of considering and practicing agriculture.

Unveiling the resistance of native weed communities: insights for managing invasive weed species in disturbed environments

“…Weed species or ‘weeds’ are plants that are considered undesirable or problematic in a particular context (Merfield, 2022). Weeds are often fast‐growing, competitive, and resilient, with the ability to colonise disturbed areas or agricultural areas rapidly (Argüelles & March, 2022). They can have negative impacts on crop production, reduce biodiversity, and interfere with human activities.…”

“…Invasive species can include animals, insects, microorganisms, and plants, whereas ‘weeds’ specifically refers to plants (Zimdahl, 2018). Many invasive species are indeed considered weeds due to their negative impacts on agriculture or natural habitats (Chen, 2019; Argüelles & March, 2022). Weeds have multiple characteristics that contribute to their invasiveness including rapid growth and reproduction, high reproductive output, adaptability, competitive ability, and efficient dispersal (see Table 1; Hodgins, Bock & Rieseberg, 2018; Irimia et al ., 2023).…”

Plants out of place: How appreciation of weeds unsettles nature in New Zealand

“…Weeds are therefore more than an unintended consequence of settlement but are an inseparable part of the established settler structure. As Argüelles & March (2022) state, ‘weeds (as a categorisation used to describe and order nature) reflect a particular construction of the environment, bringing further consequences to environmental governance’ (p. 46). Thus, weeds and their history in New Zealand help to formulate how we understand and manage the environment.…”

“…(p. 2). Political ecology builds on the evaluation of weeds as a social construction by showing that what weeds ‘do’, and how they ‘rub up’ against humans in aggravating ways, provokes their classification as weeds (Argüelles & March, 2022; Atchison & Head, 2013; Doody et al, 2014; Head, Atchison, et al, 2015; Head, Larson, et al, 2015; Head & Muir, 2004; Kull & Rangan, 2015). Weeds, unlike other plants, are often seen as more agential through their capacity to disrupt social processes, but this capacity is often to their detriment.…”

Listening to plants: Conversations between critical plant studies and vegetal geography

“…As argued by Lang (2018b), there is an environmental imperative to learn more about the experiences of people and plants in everyday life in order to connect the socio-political aspects of how people live with their broader ecological impacts, particularly within cities (see Gandy and Jasper, 2020a). Alongside the marginally more established political ecology-style approaches to plant life in geography (see Argüelles and March, 2021; Fleming, 2017), much of the work which I locate within this strand of ‘vegetal geography’ borrows from the environmental humanities, considering how the everyday stories we tell about plants can provide new insights into how vegetal life is experienced, imagined and valued (Phillips and Atchison, 2020). As Perkins (2011) suggests, attitudes towards plant life which may be perceived as ‘common sense’ are often anything but.…”