by erhan
This content was originally printed as an article in Wort Journal Issue One (Autumn ’23). It is made available here as a community resource.
erhan writes “ultimately, this reading list is by no means definitive, and I hope that people can add to it as time goes on.” In line with these wishes, we have created a community-compiled extended reading list to complement this first one, to which you can submit your own recommendations.
To cite: erhan, ‘Radical Herbalism Reading List’ in Wort, 1 (Ceredigion, Cymru: self-published, 2023), << https://wortjournal.com/radical-herbalism-reading-list/>>
The art of herbalism is founded on the art of justice. Being a radical herbalist connects us to our ancestors, our relations, kindred spirits, health, and existence.
– Claudia Manchanda
In Latin, ‘rad’ means root: in this article ‘radical herbalism’ will mean addressing the root causes of ill health. It is about getting to the root of health by addressing all aspects of healing.[1] On the one hand, understanding the social, political, spiritual and environmental context that causes ill health and suffering, be it on an individual, collective or global scale. On the other hand, taking a holistic approach to healthcare by treating mind, body and spirit as part of the wider context. Ultimately, true holistic care requires our understanding as to how health is affected by capitalism and the structures of oppression it entails – how this affects everything, from the function of people’s biological systems and psycho-emotional well-being, to who has access to healthcare and the quality of the healthcare provided.
The aim of this reading list is to give some resources to support the cultivation of a holistic perspective that can help us strive towards a much needed radical herbalism. A herbalism that not only seeks to heal people, but recognises that it is essential to go beyond an anthropocentric world-view and heal and support the earth and all beings, as well as directly seeking to actively resist and challenge oppressive systems that perpetuate suffering and ill health.
Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.
– Robin Wall Kimmerer
These resources offer radical perspectives on a number of different topics that can contribute to realising a deeply holistic approach to healing. The list is born out of a number of conversations with people studying herbal medicine at various institutions in the ‘United Kingdom’, who feel there is a lack of discussion or literature on these topics, severely hampering a truly holistic approach to herbalism.[2] These conversations are entwined with the author’s direct experiences of some herbalists and herbal institutions facilitating a herbal culture that flits between virtue signalling and, at the same time, upholding oppressive and ‘normalising’ language/discourse/ systems that promote trans exclusion, racism, classism, and ableism, amongst many other forms of oppression. All in all, contributing more to a world dominated by Instagram handles, buzzwords and ego rather than truly holistic healthcare. This list is an attempt to correct some of this blind spot and stress that health and healthcare is political.
This reading list leans heavily towards work created by marginalised people who tend to be left off our reading lists, in turn giving us a multitude of perspectives and highlighting how politics affects health and healthcare, as the emphasis placed on particular resources rooted in privilege can obscure these political aspects. It also draws a substantial number of resources from Turtle Island because there is a huge amount of writing on radical herbalism and healthcare over there.[3] Ideally we would have a large body of work to draw on from over here, but the lack thereof became apparent as the list developed and thus the inclusion of resources specific to Turtle Island became essential. Although the context is very different, and the histories of colonial capitalism and the paths taken to begin to deconstruct this differ, it is important to remember that it grew from the same seed, and we can therefore learn from the processes occurring over there and borrow some of the tools and insights to help create a more radical herbal culture here. Ultimately, this reading list is by no means definitive, and I hope that people can add to it as time goes on.
Finally, a word on the structure. The list has been sub-divided to enable people to find texts that relate to a particular topic, but it should be noted that all these areas intersect and should not be seen in isolation.
DISCLAIMERS – I am not against biomedicine and believe that it, too, can form a crucial part in a more holistic form of care. However, for healthcare to be truly holistic, the dominance of the bio-medical model needs to be understood and challenged. Only then can it be deconstructed and reintegrated alongside radical visions of healthcare. Additionally, these resources are here to inspire and generate conversation. Some offer valuable insight on particular subjects but lack intersectionality or radicality. Inclusion does not indicate unqualified endorsement and readers are reminded to approach texts critically.
Key Reading
These are some of the main resources that inspired the creation of this list and helped foster ideas of what radical herbalism could look like:
- CareNotes Collective: For Health Autonomy: Horizons of Care Beyond Austerity – Reflections from Greece (Common Notions)
- Claudia Manchanda: Ch 11: ‘Radical Roots: Decolonial Reflections’ in Wild Apothecary by Amaia Dadachanji and Claudia Manchanda (Aeon Books)[4]
- Cradle Community Collective: Brick by Brick: How we Build a World Without Prisons (Hajar Press)
- Robin Wall Kimmerer: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and The Teachings of Plants (Penguin Books)
- Rupa Marya and Raj Patel: Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice (Penguin Books)
- Toi Scott: Queering Herbalism (Self-Published, see: queerherbalism.blogspot.com) [5]
Alternative Histories of Western Medicine
Globally there are many different approaches to healing and health, each of which have been shaped by culture, history and language. These histories go back further than any text book cares to mention. Colonialism built the medical industrial complex that predominates today through “violent means of cultural suppression, erasure and exploitation”.[6] Patriarchy enables white male physicians to dominate and define the practice of medicine, often at the cost of herbal knowledge passed down through oral traditions by women, queers and people of colour.[7] “Many cultures found themselves driven underground, their historical contributions denied, and their cultural context erased and commercialised.”[8] Moreover, many people were removed from land where they could access plant medicines and food.[9] Land removal is a deliberate policy that has resulted in disproportionate dependence on medical experts, pharmaceutical companies and state-based systems for organising care.
Furthermore, white male physicians typically use themselves as the normative standard and standard that is not universal is regularly treated as such, and the conclusions drawn from this historically used people considered disposable as research subjects.[10]
This is problematic because a standard that is not universal is regularly treated as such, and the conculsions drawn from this standard are universally applied universally in the form of biomedicine.[11] An example of this is the racial bias in pulse oximetry (a test to measure blood oxygen levels),[12] with hypoxaemia – a condition requiring urgent response – identified less frequently in those with more melanin in their skin, thus severely impacting the quality of care received within this grouping.[13] It also raises the question of whether we can trust the conclusions reached through oppressive and often violent research methodologies.
Some of these issues and alternative histories are detailed in:
- Mary Chamberlain: Old Wives’ Tales: The History of Remedies, Charms and Spells (The History Press)
- Jim Downs: Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery and War Transformed Medicine (Belknap Press)
- Arthur Evans: Witchcraft and Gay Counterculture: A Radical View of Western Civilisation and Some of the People it has Tried to Destroy (Contagion Press)
- Silvia Federici: Caliban and The Witch (Autonomedia)
- Leslie Feinberg: Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman (Beacon Press)
- Amitav Ghosh: The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis (University of Chicago Press)
- Healing Histories Project, ‘Stories of Care and Control – A Timeline of the Medical Industrial Complex’ (see: mictimeline.com)
- Rosari Kingston: ‘The Thread that Could not be Broken’ in Skibbereen and District Historical Society Journal, Vol 5 [14]
- Carolyn Roberts, ‘To Heal and to Harm: Medicine, Knowledge, and Power in the Atlantic Slave Trade’ (doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 2017)
- Londa Schiebinger: Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (Stanford University Press); Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World (Harvard University Press); Nature’s Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science (Pandora)
Decolonising Medicine
According to Thirusha Naidu, biomedicine is a direct product of colonialism “because the science that underpins modern medicine emerged from Western knowledge structures based on a history of colonialism.”[15] With this in mind, it is also important to reflect on how these same knowledge structures have shaped and continue to shape modern Western herbal medicine. If we are to move towards a truly radical herbalism we need to challenge the thoughts, language, values and systems that derive from a colonial medical industrial complex that in turn shapes the way we live and impacts the kind of treatment we receive. Here are some resources on the topic:
- Birthrights, ‘Systemic Racism not Broken Bodies: An Inquiry into Racial Injustice and Human Rights in UK Maternity Care’ (available from: birthrights.org)[16]
- Noor Chadha, Bernadette Lim, Madeleine Kane, and Brenly Rowland: ‘Towards the Abolition of Biological Race in Medicine’ report (available from: instituteforhealingandjustice.org)
- Britney Daniels: Journal of A Black Queer Nurse (Common Notions)
- Tash Gordon and Becs Griffiths: Ch 5: ‘Why Society is Making Us Sick’ in Do It Yourself: A Handbook for Changing Our World ed. by The Trapese Collective (Pluto Press)
- Antoine S. Johnson, Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin: Syllabus: A History of Anti-Black Racism in Medicine (available from: African American Intellectual History Society website)[17]
- Robin Wall Kimmerer: Gathering Moss (Oregon State University Press)
- Renee Linklater: Decolonising Trauma Work: Indigenous Stories and Strategies (Fernwood Publishing Co Ltd)
- Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Ch 1: ‘Another Way’ in Coyote Medicine: Lessons from Native American Healing (Rider)
- Zoe Miles, Sam Sivapragasam and Mylo North (eds), Trans Plants: Imagining a Queer and Decolonial Botany zine
- Alondra Nelson: Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination (University of Minnesota Press)
- Queer Sex Ed podcast, Episodes 49: ‘History of Transgender Medicine’ and 51: ‘Modern Transgender Medicine’
- Claire Ratinon and Sam Ayre: Horticultural Appropriation zine (Rough Trade Editions)
- Reel Rebels Radio: Herb Talk: Decolonising Herbal Medicine podcast [18]
- Dorothy Roberts: The Problem of Race Based Medicine (Ted Talk)
- Annabel Sowemimo: Divided: Racism, Medicine and Why We Need to Decolonise Healthcare (Wellcome Collection)
- Banu Subramaniam: Ghost Stories for Darwin: The Science of Variation and the Politics of Diversity (University of Illinois Press)
- Upstream Podcast: Decolonising Medicine with Rupa Marya and Raj Patel
Holistic Healing
Western biomedicine tends to treat the body and mind as separate entities. Biological systems are separated from each other, and people are seen as separate from the communities, landscapes and histories that shape them. People often find themselves passed between different departments in the healthcare system, or unable to access particular services without jumping through the correct hoops. The majority of which occurs within a capitalist framework where profit is put before people. Additionally, the professionalisation of healing and the way many doctors impart medical information often disempowers people and results in a greater disconnection from our own bodies.
Below are resources that work to reintegrate our understanding of body, mind and spirit, and re- frame healing as something which inherently involves community and an awareness of an interconnectedness between ourselves, the earth and the greater than human beings that inhabit it. A number of resources also try to highlight that it is impossible to truly heal without challenging the systems that oppress us – systems that are fundamentally at odds with continued life on earth:
- Akala: Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire (Two Roads)
- All My Relations Podcast: Healing the Land Is Healing Ourselves (available from: allmyrelationspodcast.com)
- Kevin Carson: The Right to Self-Treatment (available from: theanarchistlibrary.org)
- Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés: Women Who Run with the Wolves (Generic)
- Lisa Fannen: Warp and Weft: Psycho emotional health, politics and experience (Active Distribution)
- Elsie Harp, ‘Healing through Collective Change’ zine (divinabotanica.com)
- Gay Plants zine, Issue 1: Monsters (gayplants.noblogs.org)
- Healing Justice Podcast (irresistible.org)
- D. Hunter: Chav Solidarity (Active Distribution) and Tracksuits, Traumas and Class Traitors (Lumpen)
- Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha: Carework: Dreaming Disability Justice (Arsenal Pulp Press)
- Margins and Murmurations podcast: Episode 3: Ayelet Adelman in conversation with Kes Otter Liefe (otterlieffe.podbean.com)
- Cindy Milstein: Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief (AK Press)
- Missing Witches podcast: Episode 169: Shabina Lafleur-Ganji on Ancestral Knowledge – Plants Are Smarter Than We Think (missingwitches.com)
- Dr Samara Linton: The Colour of Madness:Exploring BAME Mental Health in the UK (Coronet Books Inc)
- Laurel Luddite: This is Anarcha-Herbalism: Thoughts on Health and Healing for the Revolution zine (theanarchistlibrary.org)
- For The Wild Podcast: Queer Nature on Reclaiming Wild Safe Space (forthewild.world)
- Staci K. Haines: The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, Healing, and Social Justice (North Atlantic Books)
- Resmaa Menakem: My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialised Trauma and The Pathway to Mending our Hearts and Bodies (Penguin)
- Nick Montgomery and Carla Bergman: Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times (AK Press)
- Josefine Parker: Wild Transition: A Trans Woman Way to Nourish with Herbs and Magic (Voyager)
- Ruth Pearce: Understanding Trans Health (Policy Press)
- Claire Ratinon: Unearthed: On Race and Roots, and How the Soil Taught Me I Belong (Vintage)
- Nicole Rose: Overcoming Burnout (Active Distribution) and The Prisoner’s Herbal (Active Distribution)
- Toi Scott: Ch. 4 ‘Healing Ourselves and Each Other’ in Partnering With Plants and Liberatory Sustainability – Food Sovereignty, Survival and Sustainability at the Intersections (Self-published, see: queerherbalism.blogspot.com) [19]
- Various Authors: Class Struggle and Mental Health (Freedom Press)
- Alice Wong: Disability Visibility (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group)
Radical Herbalism in Practice
If we are going to talk about addressing the root causes of ill health, and treating people as part of a whole, then the way we practice herbalism is crucial. Truly holistic healing requires us to change the culture around healing – empowering people’s knowledge of health and themselves, making access to health care logistically, culturally and financially possible, and making health and healing a community rather than an individual issue. Below are some resources that could help move us in that direction:
- Alexis J. Cunningfolk: ‘The Politics of Sliding Scales’ and ‘How to Support A Herbal Call to Action’ (available from: wortsandcunning.com/blog)
- Vilde Chaya Fenster-Ehrlich and Larken Bunce: Competent Care for Transgender, Gender Queer and Non-Binary Folks: A Resource for Herbalists and Other Practitioners [website]
- Kenneth V. Hardy: Racial Trauma – Clinical Strategies and Techniques for Healing Invisible Wounds (AK Press)
- Icarus Project: Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness: A Reader and Roadmap of Bipolar Worlds; Friends Make the Best Medicine: A Guide to Creating Community Mental Health Support Networks; Through the Labyrinth; A Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs; Mindful Occupation: Rising Up Without Burning Out; Madness and Oppression: Personal Paths to Transformation and Collective Liberation (nycicarus.org/publications-media)
- Beth Maiden: My Business is a Garden Not a Line (blog)
- Malone Mukwende, Peter Tamony and Margot Turner: Mind the Gap – A Handbook of Clinical Signs in Black and Brown Skin (St George’s University of London)
- Cassie Thornton: The Hologram: Feminist, Peer-to-Peer Health for a Post-Pandemic Future (Vagabonds)
- Trans Care BC: ‘Gender Inclusive Language: Clinical settings with new clients’ (phsa.ca/transcarebc)
- Laura Wooley: We are Seeds: Practicing Anti-Oppressive Herbalism zine
——————————— NOTES ——————————–
-
- 1. Anonymous, ‘What is Radical Herbalism?’, formerly published on radicalherbalism.org.uk.
2. I have chosen to put ‘United Kingdom’ in inverted commas here to draw attention to the fact that this name is a colonial construct that came as a result of the partition of Ireland by the British in 1921. It is due to this partition that the political elites deem England, Wales, Scotland and the six occupied counties in the north of Ireland to be ‘United’. This political word play only serves to mask ongoing colonial control.
3. Turtle Island is a name for North America used by many Algonquian- and Iroquoian-speaking peoples mainly in the northeastern part of the continent, as well as Indigenous rights activists. It is taken from various origin stories found in several Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of North America. It is used instead of North America to acknowledge the existence of Indigenous peoples and their cultures, as well as highlighting the continued impact of colonialism.
4. Having spoken to the author of this essay, I was informed that this piece was censored and its radical language was erased by the publisher before being included in the book. It is worth drawing attention to how radical ideas can be stifled by liberal agendas that help sustain and perpetuate oppressive systems.
5. Also available to buy from:afrovisionary.gumroad.com
6. Sade Musa, ‘The Short History of Plants as Medicine’, 18th Dec 2019 (available at: healthline.com/health/plants-as-medicine-history/The-art-of-herbal-medicine-isnt-completely-lost
7. See Mary Chamberlain, Old Wives’ Tales and Arthur Evans, Witchcraft and Gay Counterculture.
8. Sade Musa, ‘Short History’. - 9. See Eric Richards, Debating the Highland Clearances.
- 10. See Jim Downs, Maladies of Empire.
- 11. Rupa Marya and Raj Patel, Inflamed – Deep Medicine and The Anatomy of Injustice, p. 209.
- 12. See Ashraf Fawzy et al, ‘Racial and Ethnic Discrepancy in Pulse Oximetry and Delayed Identification of Treatment Eligibility Among Patients With Covid-19’ in JAMA Intern Med, 187:7, 2022, pp. 730-8.
13. Owen Dyer, ‘Pulse oximetry may underestimate hypoxaemia in black patients, study finds’ in BMJ, 371, 2020. - 14. Also retrievable at: westernherbalmedicine.com/herbal-medicine/18-an-overview-of-the-irish-herbal- tradition.html
- 15. Thirusha Naidu, ‘Modern Medicine Is a Colonial Artifact: Introducing Decoloniality to Medical Education Research‘, Academic Medicine, 96, pp. 9-12, November 2021.
- 16. Available at: birthrights.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Birthrights-inquiry-systemic-racism-May- 22-web-1.pdf
17. Available at: aaihs.org/syllabus-a-history-of-anti-black-racism-in-medicine
18. Available at: mixcloud.com/reelrebelsradio/herb-talk-decolonising-herbal-medicine
19. Also available to buy from: afrovisionary.gumroad.com
- 1. Anonymous, ‘What is Radical Herbalism?’, formerly published on radicalherbalism.org.uk.