Life Writing as Plant-Writing: Arboreal Encounters in Kallen Pokkudan’s Kandalkaadukalkkidayil…

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_article_9424
dc.title	Life Writing as Plant-Writing: Arboreal Encounters in Kallen Pokkudan’s Kandalkaadukalkkidayil Ente Jeevitham
dc.contributor.author	Rangarajan Swarnalatha
dc.contributor.author	Venugopal Varna
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Venice University Press, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.type	Research Article
dc.language.iso	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/the-venice-journal-of-environmental-humanities/2022/2/life-writing-as-plant-writing-arboreal-encounters/
dc.description.abstract	Kallen Pokkudan, known as the ‘mangrove man’ of Kerala, devoted his life to the restoration of mangrove forests across the state. Pokkudan’s autobiography, Kandalkaadukalkidayil Ente Jeevitham (2002), is as much a life narrative of the mangrove habitats in the Kannur district of Kerala as it is of the Dalit Pulaya community to which he belongs. Reading Pokkudan’s arboreal activism in the light of recent critical approaches to vegetality, we argue that his autobiography can be read as an instance of ‘Phytography’ (Ryan 2020) or plant-writing, where the very act of writing the self evolves into writing with and listening to vegetal subjects.
dc.relation.ispartof	Lagoonscapes
dc.relation.ispartof	Vol. 2 \| Issue 2 \| December 2022
dc.issued	2022-12-15
dc.dateAccepted	2022-10-21
dc.dateSubmitted	2022-06-07
dc.identifier.issn
dc.identifier.eissn	2785-2709
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/LGSP/2785-2709/2022/04/004
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Kallen Pokkudan
dc.subject	Life writing
dc.subject	Mangroves
dc.subject	Phytography
dc.subject	Plant writing

Research Article
open access peer reviewed

Life Writing as Plant-Writing: Arboreal Encounters in Kallen Pokkudan’s Kandalkaadukalkkidayil Ente Jeevitham

Varna Venugopal Indian Institude of Technology Madras, India

Swarnalatha Rangarajan Indian Institude of Technology Madras, India

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abstract

Kallen Pokkudan, known as the ‘mangrove man’ of Kerala, devoted his life to the restoration of mangrove forests across the state. Pokkudan’s autobiography, Kandalkaadukalkidayil Ente Jeevitham (2002), is as much a life narrative of the mangrove habitats in the Kannur district of Kerala as it is of the Dalit Pulaya community to which he belongs. Reading Pokkudan’s arboreal activism in the light of recent critical approaches to vegetality, we argue that his autobiography can be read as an instance of ‘Phytography’ (Ryan 2020) or plant-writing, where the very act of writing the self evolves into writing with and listening to vegetal subjects.

Published

Dec. 15, 2022

Accepted

Oct. 21, 2022

Submitted

June 7, 2022

Language

Keywords: Phytography • Kallen Pokkudan • Plant writing • Life writing • Mangroves

permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/LGSP/2785-2709/2022/04/004

Copyright: © 2022 Varna Venugopal, Swarnalatha Rangarajan. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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