Melissa Lindqvist

Vegetal-beings are the most abundant form of ‘nonhuman’ entities that humans encounter, more abundant than nonhuman animals, microbes and fungi, yet it is commonplace to exclude the vegetal from our system and emphasize the discontinuities between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Within the context of this research paper, to talk about experiencing, engaging with, or even meeting the vegetal is to talk about an encounter. It cannot be a simple engagement due to the complex experience involved, a proportion of difficulty in understanding and relating between species, and intrigue in the
face of this otherness, of plant life. Underscoring this research is the move away from thinking about plants as simple and passive entities, who possess a lesser status than ‘humans’ on this earth.

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