ACCESS Seminars by Dr Mardi Reardon-Smith

Living with and against weeds:
toxicity, unanticipated consequences, and a vegetal political ecology

Abstract

The spread of invasive plant species poses acute challenges to human and non-human life, threatening biodiversity, economic livelihoods, and human health. Weeds are a leading driver of biodiversity loss globally and given Australia’s status as an island populated with endemic species found nowhere else in the world, weed control is a pressing issue. In anthropology, there has been an embrace of the concept of “weediness” as generative in recent years, both as a way to think through unexpected flourishings amidst the ruins of capitalism, and to challenge an anthropocentric view of vegetal value. However, in contexts where the spread of invasive plant species threatens livelihoods, lifeworlds, biodiversity and ecosystems, there is an urgent need to take seriously the negative consequences of weedy proliferation. I argue that any consideration of weeds and weediness must take into account the impacts of weed control, particularly in terms of herbicide use, and that the impacts of weeds and herbicides can be productively investigated in the same frame. As such, I advocate for bringing a vegetal political ecology (Fleming, 2017) into conversation with work on toxicities to investigate the interrelations between plants, agri-biopolitics, and herbicides.

Biography

Dr Mardi Reardon-Smith is a Research Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society working on ADM, ecosystems and multispecies relationships. Mardi is an environmental anthropologist and science and technology studies (STS) researcher who specialises in the study of the social dimensions of environmental management in intercultural contexts. She has published on topics including the joint management of protected areas, the co-creation of environmental knowledges, and human relationships to invasive plant (weed) species and their control. Her work appears in journals such as Geoforum, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, and Ethnos. Her research process includes making photographs and film, and her work has been shown domestically and internationally at gallery spaces and film festivals. Mardi’s forthcoming book Making Do: Conservation Ethics and Ecological Care in Australia is under contract with Stanford University Press.