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Human-Plant Interrelations

Human-Plant Interrelations

by Vanessa-Nadine Sternath and Silvie Lang

Plants and humans live in mutual, network-like relationships (Stobbe 2025, 418). On the one hand, such interrelations are characterized by the dependence of human existence on plants (419), while on the other hand, specific collaborative forms of interaction (417) between humans and plants can be traced. Originating from biology, the process of co-evolution is taken up for literary and cultural studies research. Co-evolution refers to reciprocal, adaptive genetic changes between interacting species (Woolhouse 2002, 570). However, when the interrelations of humans with more-than-human species are addressed, the term is also understood under the phenomenon of a general selection pressure, like adaptations to environmental changes (Stephens 2004, 562), and no longer refers specifically to a change in genetic material.

For Literary and Cultural Plant Studies (LCPS), this implies a shift of object and subject: the focus of Cultural Studies analyses is no longer on humans, their needs, and thus the reification of plants, but rather the plants now make humans do things and are recognized as actors (Stobbe 2019, 424). Several approaches from the field of cultural studies allow us to analyze how not only humans, but also plants are able to enter a network in which they participate constitutively. Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory (ANT) views the world(s) as constantly changing network(s) (Latour 2007, 71–72) which implies that actions proceed neither monodirectionally nor purely causally but rather reciprocally and relationally (Latour 2007, 50). In this sense, actors can both make others act and be made to act by others, because “action should rather be felt as a node, a knot, and a conglomerate of many surprising sets of agencies that have to be slowly disentangled” (44; 128–133). This is what Donna Haraway calls tentacular (2016, 32), which, in turn, resonates with her conceptions of companion species (Haraway 2003) and kinship (Haraway 2016): everything is connected to something. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s concepts in terms of nurture, reciprocity, and care (Kimmerer 2013) – meaning that if people take something from plants, they inevitably also give them something – are also part of the broader framework discussed here. Togetherness is not to be understood as trade or even exploitation, but as a mutual culture of giving that builds up interrelations. Gabriele Dürbeck, Urte Stobbe, and Evi Zemanek focus on the “mutual exchange” in interspecies contact (2023, 10).

Aspects of human-plant interrelations

Such approaches are fruitful regarding various Literary and Cultural Studies topics in historically and contemporarily oriented disciplines, whereby the following list is an open and non-hierarchical one:

  • culture and media: literature, (visual) art, theater, films, games, culinary
  • religions, indigenous practices, medicine, philosophy
  • agriculture and nutrition
  • institutions: research institutions and science, politics, architecture and real estate, urban and landscape planning, (climate) activism, NGOs
  • …

In all these endeavors, it must be pointed out that the perspectives of Plant Studies are inevitably anthropocentric, i. e. “based on human ideas of language and communication” (Stobbe, Kramer, and Wanning 2022, 17). Nevertheless, plant studies promote awareness of the relevance of plants in different contexts. The following section focuses on various individual aspects of human-plant interrelations.

1. Plants as entities relevant to action

In cultural and literary contexts, analyses focus on the space the text gives to plants: how much they speak and if they function as place of action or as action-relevant entities (16). Following a broader concept of text, this includes not only coherent and cohesive units of meaning written in characters, but also other media such as images, film, games and music. According to Urte Stobbe (2025, 427), relevance to action is constituted by different aspects of plants as characters with their own time, voice, space and place. It is therefore important

  • to keep distance from the perspective of human-centeredness or from metaphorical, anthropocentric perspectives;
  • not to subordinate plants to humanly conceived time, but to grasp their own times;
  • to perceive them in their very own voices, which are not acoustically audible to humans;
  • to consider them in their anchoring in space (geometrically or topographically abstracted instead of separating them from it);
  • and to consider their attachment to a place or a locality (concretely localizable space to which meaning is attributed).

2. Plants as agents

Plants can function as agents beyond their status as characters. In this context, the question of agency arises. The term agency can be divided into actively doing something and making others do things; the former means that plants can do things, while the latter implies that plants “make others do unexpected things” (Latour 2007, 106). It is important not to automatically understand agency as a human-like subject status (Sternath, Lang, and Riess 2025, 10).

3. Interactions between plants and other entities

Interactions between plants and other entities become visible particularly regarding relevance of action as well as agency. Latours ANT, which is characterized by a dynamic network concept, is suitable for investigating these interactions: Through actions, entities enter a network in which they constitutively participate. This means that networks are always open to the outside, connected to other networks, and thus interconnected (Sternath, Lang and Riess 2025, 13 and 18). However, networks are not just metaphors or comparisons, but can be used as a very concrete analytical tool.

4. Differences between plants and other entities

Regarding human-plant interrelations, it is interesting to see how and by what means plants differ from non-plant entities. Hybrid and anthropomorphic characters can be examined by balancing the stableness or porousness of the boundaries between the beings (Stobbe, Kramer and Wanning 2022, 16).

5. Outlook

The examination of human-plant interrelations not only opens up new perspectives on the role of plants in our lives but also calls for a fundamental rethinking of the way we perceive and shape these interrelations. Studying the interrelations between humans and plants makes it clear that a deep understanding of the importance of plant life in the biosphere and in human affairs is essential.

Reference Works

  • Dürbeck, Gabriele, Urte Stobbe, and Evi Zemanek. 2023. “Netzwerke des Lebendigen: Multispecies agencies und Formexperimente in hybriden Genres. Einleitung.” In Netzwerke des Lebendigen: Multispecies agencies und Formexperimente in hybriden Genres, edited by Gabriele Dürbeck, Urte Stobbe, and Evi Zemanek. V & R unipress, Brill. https://doi.org/10.14220/9783737015257.9.
  • Haraway, Donna. 2003. The Companion Species Manifesto. Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Prickly Paradigm Press.
  • Haraway, Donna. 2016. Staying with the Trouble. Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
  • Kimmerer, Robin Wall. 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass. Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants. Milkweed Editions.
  • Latour, Bruno. 2007. Reassembling the Social. An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford University Press.
  • Stephens, Christopher. 2004. “Selection, Drift, and the ‘Forces’ of Evolution.” Philosophy of Science 71 (4): 550–570.
  • Sternath, Vanessa, Silvie Lang, and Christine Riess. 2025. “Menschen-Pflanzen-Netzwerke und vegetabile agency in der Klimakatastrophe. Einleitung.“ In Menschen-Pflanzen-Netzwerke und vegetabile agency in der Klimakatastrophe, edited by Vanessa-Nadine Sternath, Silvie Lang, and Christine Riess. Transcript. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839476208.
  • Stobbe, Urte, Anke Kramer, and Berbeli Wanning. 2022. “Einleitung: Plant Studies – Kulturwissenschaftliche Pflanzenforschung.“ In Literaturen und Kulturen des Vegetabilen. Plant Studies – Kulturwissenschaftliche Pflanzenforschung, edited by Urte Stobbe, Anke Kramer, and Berbeli Wanning. Peter Lang.
  • Stobbe, Urte. 2025. “Plant Studies.” In Handbuch kulturwissenschaftliche ‚Studies‘, edited by Jonas Nesselhauf and Florian Weber. Walter de Gruyter.
  • Woolhouse, Mark E. J., Joanne P. Webster, Esteban Domingo, Brian Charlesworth, and Bruce R. Levin. 2002. “Biological and biomedical implications of the co-evolution of pathogens and their hosts.” Nature Genetics 32: 569–577. https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1202-569 (last accessed 12th June 2025).