A high quality academic contribution on the topic of sensitive and supersensible approaches to life in the context of agriculture has finally emerged. Subtle Agroecologies, Farming With the Hidden Half of Nature is an epoch-making contribution. The book was edited by Julia Wright of Coventry University in England and is distributed for free in its original PDF (English) version under the free Creative Commons BY-NC-NA licence.
This book is about the invisible or subtle nature of food and farming and the nature of existence. Everything we know (and don't know) about the physical world has a subtle counterpart that has received little attention in modern agricultural practice and research. If you now think that this book is not for you, that it seems more important to deal with the pressing material challenges facing the world before you allow yourself the luxury of delving into these subtleties, you are mistaken. Perhaps it is precisely this worldview - the one that prioritises the physical-material dimension of reality - that has helped put us in this position in the first place. Perhaps we need a different worldview to get out of this situation?
This book contributes fundamentally to the discipline of subtle agroecology, a link between indigenous epistemologies, multidisciplinary advances in the study of electromagnetic and sound waves and the ethereal world, and the science of sustainable agriculture. Subtle agroecology is not an agricultural system in its own right, but overlaps existing matter-based agroecological systems with a non-material dimension.
With 43 authors from 12 countries and five continents, drawn from the natural and social sciences as well as the arts and humanities, this multi-faceted book introduces the discipline and explains its relevance and potential contribution to the field of agroecology.
Research in subtle agroecology can be described as the systematic study of the nature of the unseen world in relation to agricultural practice, adapting and innovating research methods, especially those of a more material nature. This is undertaken with the general aim of establishing and maintaining balance and harmony. Such research is an unbiased investigation based on the experiences of people working on and with the land for several thousand years up to the present day. By addressing and reinterpreting the enduring relationship between humans and nature, the implications could revolutionise agriculture by heralding a new wave of more sustainable farming techniques, transforming our entire relationship with nature into a true collaboration rather than control and, ultimately, changing ourselves.
Link to the book:
Press communication from biodynamie-recherche: www.biodynamie-recherche.org
