{"id":{"repo_id":"auckland-ms","oai_identifier":"oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/69320"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/auckland-ms/oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/69320","repository":{"repo_id":"auckland-ms","name":"University of Auckland","base_url":"https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Sacred Plant, Sentient Earth: A Vegetal Geography of Healing in a More-Than-Human World","abstract":"Plants and humans are deeply entangled, having shared intimate relationships since the beginning of time. In particular, humans have had a long history of relating with plants-as-medicines, developing emplaced healing traditions centred upon culturally-embedded ecological praxes that blur species boundaries and take seriously vegetal sentience and human-plant kinship. However, such healing traditions and practices have been increasingly marginalised in the contemporary era. This is because in its current form, ‘medicine’ is largely viewed through a singularly biomedical lens and stripped of its relational lifeforce, rendering it a series of material symptoms and ‘cures’ rather than a process of relationship-tending between human and non-human others. To this end, I posit that the widespread denial of plant agency, as leveraged and upheld by anthropocentric onto-epistemologies, is increasingly linked to the declining health of not only human bodies and minds, but the planetary body and mind of Earth as a whole. This thesis puts forward the simple yet radical idea that our collective healing at a planetary scale first and foremost necessitates a renewal of emplaced relationships with an animate, sentient Earth. The process of renewing our relationship with Earth relies upon a deep process of ‘re-membering’; a liberatory praxis of decolonising dominant western worldviews and recovering healing knowledge through an embodiment of ancestrally-relevant practices that re-stitch and re-centre human stories of belonging within cosmologically-intact Indigenous worldviews in place. As a practising folk herbalist and geographer, I see and treat plants as promising portals within which deep ecological wisdom and healing may be realised, cultivated and tended. As such, I engage in a process of ‘plant dieting’ in this work – an emergent multispecies and ceremonial research method with plants – to take seriously‘morethan-human’ research and healing praxis that a priori engages with a sentient earth ethic. As a woman of mixed Indigenous Asian (Naxi) and European ancestry, born and living in settler-colonial Aotearoa New Zealand, I occupy an unconventional ‘postcolonial positioning’ in the world. From this view, I offer my own praxis of decoloniality through a ‘decolonial autoethnography’ with plants to critically engage in an exploration of Indigenous worlding(s), decolonising multispecies research, and emplaced healing. This thesis thus represents a creative, experimental and embodied journey into the recovery of ancestral wisdom and a re-story-ation of vegetal ontologies that seek to (re)member, (re)envision and (re)embolden healing practices that centre Indigenous and planetary futurity in contemporary times.","abstract_html":"Plants and humans are deeply entangled, having shared intimate relationships since the beginning of time. In particular, humans have had a long history of relating with plants-as-medicines, developing emplaced healing traditions centred upon culturally-embedded ecological praxes that blur species boundaries and take seriously vegetal sentience and human-plant kinship. However, such healing traditions and practices have been increasingly marginalised in the contemporary era. This is because in its current form, ‘medicine’ is largely viewed through a singularly biomedical lens and stripped of its relational lifeforce, rendering it a series of material symptoms and ‘cures’ rather than a process of relationship-tending between human and non-human others. To this end, I posit that the widespread denial of plant agency, as leveraged and upheld by anthropocentric onto-epistemologies, is increasingly linked to the declining health of not only human bodies and minds, but the planetary body and mind of Earth as a whole. This thesis puts forward the simple yet radical idea that our collective healing at a planetary scale first and foremost necessitates a renewal of emplaced relationships with an animate, sentient Earth. The process of renewing our relationship with Earth relies upon a deep process of ‘re-membering’; a liberatory praxis of decolonising dominant western worldviews and recovering healing knowledge through an embodiment of ancestrally-relevant practices that re-stitch and re-centre human stories of belonging within cosmologically-intact Indigenous worldviews in place. As a practising folk herbalist and geographer, I see and treat plants as promising portals within which deep ecological wisdom and healing may be realised, cultivated and tended. As such, I engage in a process of ‘plant dieting’ in this work – an emergent multispecies and ceremonial research method with plants – to take seriously‘morethan-human’ research and healing praxis that a priori engages with a sentient earth ethic. As a woman of mixed Indigenous Asian (Naxi) and European ancestry, born and living in settler-colonial Aotearoa New Zealand, I occupy an unconventional ‘postcolonial positioning’ in the world. From this view, I offer my own praxis of decoloniality through a ‘decolonial autoethnography’ with plants to critically engage in an exploration of Indigenous worlding(s), decolonising multispecies research, and emplaced healing. This thesis thus represents a creative, experimental and embodied journey into the recovery of ancestral wisdom and a re-story-ation of vegetal ontologies that seek to (re)member, (re)envision and (re)embolden healing practices that centre Indigenous and planetary futurity in contemporary times.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["McSherry, Alice Grace"],"institution":"ResearchSpace@Auckland","degree_name":"PhD","degree_level":"Doctoral","degree_discipline":"Geography","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Kearns, Robin","Gaillard, JC"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2024,"date_issued":"2024","date_published":"2024","updated_at":"2026-07-24T01:02:59Z","subjects":[],"languages":[],"rights":["Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated."],"rights_urls":["https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm"],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2292/69320","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Kearns, Robin","Gaillard, JC"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["McSherry, Alice Grace"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2024-07-24T20:14:43Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2024-07-24T20:14:43Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2024"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["ResearchSpace@Auckland"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Geography"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Doctoral"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["PhD"]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["The University of Auckland"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated."]},{"key":"dc:rights.uri","label":"Rights URI","values":["https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2292/69320"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Plants and humans are deeply entangled, having shared intimate relationships since the beginning of time. In particular, humans have had a long history of relating with plants-as-medicines, developing emplaced healing traditions centred upon culturally-embedded ecological praxes that blur species boundaries and take seriously vegetal sentience and human-plant kinship. However, such healing traditions and practices have been increasingly marginalised in the contemporary era. This is because in its current form, ‘medicine’ is largely viewed through a singularly biomedical lens and stripped of its relational lifeforce, rendering it a series of material symptoms and ‘cures’ rather than a process of relationship-tending between human and non-human others. To this end, I posit that the widespread denial of plant agency, as leveraged and upheld by anthropocentric onto-epistemologies, is increasingly linked to the declining health of not only human bodies and minds, but the planetary body and mind of Earth as a whole. This thesis puts forward the simple yet radical idea that our collective healing at a planetary scale first and foremost necessitates a renewal of emplaced relationships with an animate, sentient Earth. The process of renewing our relationship with Earth relies upon a deep process of ‘re-membering’; a liberatory praxis of decolonising dominant western worldviews and recovering healing knowledge through an embodiment of ancestrally-relevant practices that re-stitch and re-centre human stories of belonging within cosmologically-intact Indigenous worldviews in place. As a practising folk herbalist and geographer, I see and treat plants as promising portals within which deep ecological wisdom and healing may be realised, cultivated and tended. As such, I engage in a process of ‘plant dieting’ in this work – an emergent multispecies and ceremonial research method with plants – to take seriously‘morethan-human’ research and healing praxis that a priori engages with a sentient earth ethic. As a woman of mixed Indigenous Asian (Naxi) and European ancestry, born and living in settler-colonial Aotearoa New Zealand, I occupy an unconventional ‘postcolonial positioning’ in the world. From this view, I offer my own praxis of decoloniality through a ‘decolonial autoethnography’ with plants to critically engage in an exploration of Indigenous worlding(s), decolonising multispecies research, and emplaced healing. This thesis thus represents a creative, experimental and embodied journey into the recovery of ancestral wisdom and a re-story-ation of vegetal ontologies that seek to (re)member, (re)envision and (re)embolden healing practices that centre Indigenous and planetary futurity in contemporary times."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Sacred Plant, Sentient Earth: A Vegetal Geography of Healing in a More-Than-Human World"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Kearns, Robin","Gaillard, JC"],"dc:creator":["McSherry, Alice Grace"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2024-07-24T20:14:43Z"],"dc:date.available":["2024-07-24T20:14:43Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2024"],"dc:description.abstract":["Plants and humans are deeply entangled, having shared intimate relationships since the beginning of time. In particular, humans have had a long history of relating with plants-as-medicines, developing emplaced healing traditions centred upon culturally-embedded ecological praxes that blur species boundaries and take seriously vegetal sentience and human-plant kinship. However, such healing traditions and practices have been increasingly marginalised in the contemporary era. This is because in its current form, ‘medicine’ is largely viewed through a singularly biomedical lens and stripped of its relational lifeforce, rendering it a series of material symptoms and ‘cures’ rather than a process of relationship-tending between human and non-human others. To this end, I posit that the widespread denial of plant agency, as leveraged and upheld by anthropocentric onto-epistemologies, is increasingly linked to the declining health of not only human bodies and minds, but the planetary body and mind of Earth as a whole. This thesis puts forward the simple yet radical idea that our collective healing at a planetary scale first and foremost necessitates a renewal of emplaced relationships with an animate, sentient Earth. The process of renewing our relationship with Earth relies upon a deep process of ‘re-membering’; a liberatory praxis of decolonising dominant western worldviews and recovering healing knowledge through an embodiment of ancestrally-relevant practices that re-stitch and re-centre human stories of belonging within cosmologically-intact Indigenous worldviews in place. As a practising folk herbalist and geographer, I see and treat plants as promising portals within which deep ecological wisdom and healing may be realised, cultivated and tended. As such, I engage in a process of ‘plant dieting’ in this work – an emergent multispecies and ceremonial research method with plants – to take seriously‘morethan-human’ research and healing praxis that a priori engages with a sentient earth ethic. As a woman of mixed Indigenous Asian (Naxi) and European ancestry, born and living in settler-colonial Aotearoa New Zealand, I occupy an unconventional ‘postcolonial positioning’ in the world. From this view, I offer my own praxis of decoloniality through a ‘decolonial autoethnography’ with plants to critically engage in an exploration of Indigenous worlding(s), decolonising multispecies research, and emplaced healing. This thesis thus represents a creative, experimental and embodied journey into the recovery of ancestral wisdom and a re-story-ation of vegetal ontologies that seek to (re)member, (re)envision and (re)embolden healing practices that centre Indigenous and planetary futurity in contemporary times."],"dc:identifier.uri":["https://hdl.handle.net/2292/69320"],"dc:publisher":["ResearchSpace@Auckland"],"dc:rights":["Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated."],"dc:rights.uri":["https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm"],"dc:title":["Sacred Plant, Sentient Earth: A Vegetal Geography of Healing in a More-Than-Human World"],"dc:type":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Geography"],"thesis:degree_level":["Doctoral"],"thesis:degree_name":["PhD"],"thesis:institution_name":["The University of Auckland"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T01:02:59Z"}