Charlotte Drohan (UCL) - 2023-24 Students
dtnvcrd@ucl.ac.uk

Beyond Kew: the political lives of plants in British botanic gardens

This research project aims to explore British botanic gardens as sites of growth, renegotiation, and rebellion. Botanic gardens, sites of great beauty, have complex histories and legacies that implicate them, like many modern museums, as places of political significance. Botanic gardens are indelibly connected to the empires of Colonial Europe, as well as values of the Enlightenment that render ‘Western’-ness as default.

We traditionally understand gardens as spaces of temporal cycles, where organisms are constantly growing and dying, as well as proliferating the next period of growth. In my research, I wish to connect these natural cycles of growth and regrowth to acts of renegotiation of narratives that have long prevailed in botanic gardens. This requires an examination of not only what botanic gardens are and how we have traditionally come to perceive them, but also ways that our relationships with plants can be redefined. It also will become central to consider the agency of plants within the space of botanic gardens and how this agency plays its own role in inter-species relationships.

Furthermore, the realities of climate catastrophe for many communities historically connected to colonial expansion necessitate a critical examination of how European scientific institutions communicate their ecological impact with the wider public. I seek to contribute to and challenge the current positioning of botanic gardens as mainly sites of ecological learning, by exploring the connections implied between colonial and neo-colonial scientific practices and the climate catastrophe. By focusing on smaller gardens beyond the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, I propose that their beautiful, and perhaps benign, image needs to be re-examined and reimagined by both institutions and visitors.

Primary Supervisor: Claire Robins

Secondary Supervisor: Veysel Apaydin