Seeds and Possibilities: Rethinking Knowledge, Kinship, and Hope amid Climate Crisis

Abstract

The thesis begins by examining the ways in which colonial logics of extraction and commodification have led to the climate crisis and so-called “Anthropocene,” focusing specifically on botanical colonialism and the disconnection of living things from their webs of life. Growing out a present landscape of damage and erasure, the investigation follows the practices of people working to restore, heal, and revitalize these connections. It focuses on sites including an old-growth forest in the Scottish Highlands, which is not only the site of an ecological rewilding effort but also a personal rewilding practice, and the Seed Farm at Princeton University, where culturally meaningful seeds are cultivated and relationships are tended. Within these sites, further questions arise, including what constitutes meaningful action, the reasons why local memory is crucial to preserve alongside seeds, how scientific institutions and universities can work more ethically with communities, and why connections are important for beginning a much larger conversation.