Paper short abstract:

This paper explores three methodological challenges in writing ecobiography: utilising botanical specimens as an ecobiographical archive; writing ecobiography from a decolonised perspective; and infusing more-than-human approaches through ecobiographical, historical and life writing elements.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores methodological challenges in writing ecobiography through the story of Sarah Brooks (1850-1928), a prolific botanical collector for preeminent Australian botanist Baron von Mueller (1850s-1890s). Located for the final 54 years of her life on the remote eastern edge of the South West Australian Floristic Region (SWAFR) a global biodiversity hotspot, Sarah’s collecting identified plants new to Western science, and helped to establish the biogeographical boundary of the SWAFR.

The writing of Sarah’s life combines ecobiography, environmental history and auto-ethnography, through more-than-human approaches. Three significant methodological challenges have emerged: firstly, how to utilise the botanical specimens collected by Sarah as an innovative primary archive, along with more conventional sources.

The second challenge lies in writing the ecobiography of a settler-coloniser in a sensitive and ethical way. My research explores the dissonance between Sarah’s dawning understanding of the cultural and ecological values of the place she helped colonise, and her complicity in the colonisation process and pastoral industry that would ultimately diminish the values she was discovering and documenting. My research project has been grappling with the possibility of writing a decolonised history of a settler-coloniser while being inextricably part of the settler-colonialist culture that has wrought such a profound impact on this place and its traditional owners.

Finally, this paper will reflect on whether this project has been successful in infusing the three layers of ecobiography, environmental history and auto-ethnography with more-than-human approaches, in the hope of exploring new forms of life writing.