How have histories of colonialism and their foundational language of gender, race, sexuality, and nation shaped the language, terminology, and theories of the modern plant sciences? How and why do botanical theories remain grounded in the violence of their colonial pasts? In wrestling with these difficult origins, I develop the concept of migrant ecologies to retheorize plant migration and reproductive biology. I explore new biological frameworks that harness the power of feminist thought in order to reimagine and reinvigorate our love of plants.

Banu Subramaniam is the Luella LaMer Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Wellesley College. Trained as a plant evolutionary biologist, Banu engages the feminist studies of science in the practices of experimental biology. Author of  Botany of Empire: Plant Worlds and the Scientific Legacies of Colonialism (University of Washington Press 2024), Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism (2019) Ghost Stories for Darwin: The Science of Variation and the Politics of Diversity (2014), Banu’s current work focuses on decolonizing botany, nativism in plant biology and the relationship of science and religious nationalism in India.

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