Harnessing a myriad of methodologies and research spanning multiple continents, this volume delves into the power of everyday forms of biodiversity conservation, motivated by sensory and embodied engagement with plants. Through an array of interdisciplinary contributions, the authors argue that the vast majority of biodiversity conservation worldwide is carried out not by large-scale, hierarchical initiatives but by ordinary people who cultivate sensory-motivated, place-based bonds with plants.

Acknowledging the monumental role of everyday champions in tending biodiversity, the contributors write that this caretaking is crucial to countering ecological harm and global injustice stemming from colonial violence and racial capitalism.

Contributors
Mike Anastario
Ally Ang
Antonia Barreau
Julián Caviedes
Chen Chen
Evelyn Flores
Terese V. Gagnon
José Tomás Ibarra
Fred L. Joiner
Gary Nabhan
Virginia D. Nazarea
Shannon A. Novak
Valentina Peveri
Emily Ramsey
Yasuaki Sato
Justin Simpson
David E. Sutton

Terese V. Gagnon is an environmental and political anthropologist. She is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the co-editor of Moveable Gardens: Itineraries and Sanctuaries of Memory.

“Embodying Biodiversity is a moving exaltation and eye-opening homage to everyday practices of sensuous conservation, undertaken by plants and people who are bound by intimate and affective relations of care, knowledge, and nourishment, and that persist in the face of racial colonial capitalism. The volume’s granular attention to bodily engagements, emergent sovereignties, and rooted co-becomings offers a vital counterpoint to the paralyzing politics of despair so often generated in Anthropocenic times. In highlighting possibilities for harmonious human-vegetal flourishings across space and generations, Embodying Biodiversity artfully and sensitively opens our senses to the hopes harbored by biocultural refuges that are shared across kin and kind.”—Sophie Chao, author of In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua
 
“As this new collection of beautifully crafted essays show, ordinary people everywhere play a fundamental role in keeping biocultural diversity alive. Anchored in loving memories, their daily sensuous engagements with plants, animals, crops, and foods may not sound that impressive. Yet, their ‘biophilia’ has a power of its own, perhaps precisely because it thrives in the shadows of grand theories, official pronouncements, and institutionalized policy processes. The authors of Embodying Biodiversity: Sensory Conservation as Refuge and Sovereignty follow in the footsteps of talented ethnographer, writer, and scientist Virginia Nazarea to show us how ethnography makes the very small or apparently insignificant visible.”—Laura Rival, author of Huaorani Transformations in Twenty-First-Century Ecuador: Treks into the Future of Time— -