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(2016) Ecodocumentaries, Dordrecht, Springer.
The botanical description of a tree is based on the supposedly 'scientific" assumption that "it" is an individual (the unit smaller than population), which can be told apart from all its relations, including its pollinators and other beneficiaries. The present chapter challenges this basic ontological assumption by looking closely at a sycamore fig, the protagonist of the film The Queen of Trees (and by extension, all organisms). In fact, the chapter approaches the ontological question through praxeology by analysing the "actions' of the tree (including pollination) with the help of the theory of action from tolkaappiyam and the Indian musicological concepts of tonal relation. The analysis enables us to see how the tree is in fact a tiNai itself, a community whose naturo-spiritual members (including the humans like the Masai who see the tree as their ancestor) share the being of each other in a differentiably continuous manner.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-56224-1_8
Full citation:
Selvamony, N. (2016)., What is "a" fig?, in R. K. alex (ed.), Ecodocumentaries, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 135-153.
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