Please, nobody terminate their audible account! I have always been able to find books to listen to while hoeing, weeding, shoveling, digging, planting, etc. that broaden my spectrum beyond podcasts.
Yes Jenn, I loved Braiding Sweetgrass so much I gave two copies away for Christmas last year. one of those people then gave away two more copies, and both of us got so excited about Sweetgrass that we bought braids of it, although as the book makes clear, sweetgrass is not supposed to be bought.
There are a few books on audible that are permaculture friendly or supportive in a theoretical fashion. Three of them are written by scientist women, and not coincidentally those are the most interdisciplinary and abstractly mind-blowing. By listening to their books, I have discovered that all of these academics are comrades, embellishing on each other's theories. I intend to write proper reviews of any that have not been covered elsewhere.
Braiding Sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. Take for example her exploration of the "Indian giver" trope:
Lewis Hyde wonderfully illustrates this dissonance in his exploration of the "Indian giver." This expression, used negatively today as a pejorative for someone who gives something and then wants to have it back, actually derives from a fascinating cross-cultural misinterpretation between an indigenous culture operating in a
gift economy and a colonial culture predicated on the concept of private property. When gifts were given to the settlers by the
Native inhabitants, the recipients understood that they were valuable and were intended to be retained. Giving them away would have been an affront. But the indigenous people understood the value of the
gift to be based in reciprocity and would be affronted if the gifts did not circulate back to them. Many of our ancient teachings counsel that whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away again.
From the viewpoint of a private property economy, the "gift" is deemed to be "free" because we obtain it free of charge, at no cost. But in the
gift economy, gifts are not free. The essence of the gift is that it creates a set of relationships. The currency of a gift economy is, at its
root, reciprocity. In Western thinking, private
land is understood to be a "bundle of rights," whereas in a gift economy property has a "bundle of responsibilities" attached.
The
Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing.
Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, by Donna J. Haraway.
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, by James C. Scott.
With audible, if you don't like any book, even if you listen to it through, you can get a refund for your credit, so there's nothing to lose. Try any of these books, you won't be disappointed. [/commercial]
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