A core question in plant ethnography is:
How can human sensoria and learned modes of perception capture the existences, lifeworlds, and practices of world-shaping through and among plants? Certainly, this needs experimentality, creativity, and a commitment to transdisciplinarity. In this field trip, we want to explore possibilities of ethnographic attuning to plants by engaging with the Moawald, a tiny forest in the center of Berlin.
We will do this guided by two approaches, open for participants to choose:
a) Experimenting with how to sense (with) plants, following Natasha Myers and Ayelen Liberona’s explorations of sensing botanical sensoria and becoming sensor toward plants
b) acting as “urban field naturalist”, mobilizing a Guide to Staring at Flowers, developed by The Urban Field Naturalist Project, for attuning to an urban forest in autumn mood
Organization:
Elisabeth Luggauer ( Lab Anthropology of Environment | Human Relations, HU – Berlin)
Thursday, November 12, 2026
10 – 12 am CET
Location:
Tiny Forest Moawald @ Stadtgarten Moabit (wheelchair accessible) on-site only
Exact location: https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=52.534354&mlon=13.337215#map=18/52.534356/13.337215
The introduction will be in English; a German translation will be available. Participation is possible in both languages.
We will be outdoors. Please come adequately equipped for that day’s weather.
For questions or to receive the optional reading for preparation, please write to: elisabeth.luggauer@hu-berlin.de
Suggested reading for preparation (optional):
Myers, Natasha & Liberona, Ayelen: “Becoming Sensor in Sentient Worlds”, https://becomingsensor.com/.
Myers, Natasha. 2017. “Ungrid-able Ecologies: Decolonizing the Ecological Sensorium in a 10,000-year-old NaturalCultural Happening”, Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 3(2) 1-24.
Myers, Natasha. 2014. Sensing Botanical Sensoria. A Kriya for Cultivating your Inner Plant. Centre for Imaginative Ethnography, Imaginings Series, http://imaginativeethnography.org/imaginings/affect/sensing-botanical-sensoria/.
Ertl, Cornelia, Susanne Schmitt und Sandra Calkins. 2025. “Pflanzenethnographie.” Handbuch Umweltethnologie, edited by Kathrin Eitel and Carsten Wergin. Springer VS: 185-204. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-658-45341-1_8.
Elton, Sarah. 2021. Growing Methods: Developing a Methodology for Identifying Plant Agency and Vegetal Politics in the City. Environmental Humanities 13 (1): 93–112. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-8867219.
The Urban Field Naturalist Project. 2022. A Guide to the Creatures in your Neighborhood. Sydney Murdoch Books, pp. 92-100.