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Expertise and Inability

Cultured Materials and the Reason for Some Retreating Lawns in London

University of Hull, UK

Material culture, as a concept, is suggestive of control. Yet, when we acknowledge it, it becomes clear that all the physical things we handle have a degree of independence. Indeed, by exploring the ways in which this independence is intimately accommodated, a richer understanding of certain kinds of experience could follow. With this argument in mind, this article travels to some domestic gardens in north London to reconsider the human activities associated with the plants that are found there. In these sites it seems that amicable arrangements of entity only ever become possible through fully embracing the fact that those people involved own only one, amongst many, of the agencies in evidence there. In fact, whilst an idea of a successful gardener can connote an efficient exercise of power, I want to argue that the opposite is actually the case. My contention, therefore, is that, to fully find pleasure from plants, people must become enjoyably expert in understanding that any complete control is always unlikely, and this is a contention with some potentially important implications for current patterns of practice.

Key Words: agency • control • garden • material culture • plant • wellbeing

Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 11, No. 3, 364-381 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1359183506068810


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