Plants as Inventors: Interrogating Human Exceptionalism within Narratives of Law and Vegetal Life

Abstract:Drawing upon decolonial feminist science studies and critical plant studies, this article posits plants as inventors to develop a vegetal feminist approach for understanding the human exceptionalism that is central to conventional narratives of patent law and vegetal life. This critical analysis of the Hoodia gordonii case examines the anthropocentric assumptions of patent law, interrogates colonial legacies that obscure notions of plants as sentient beings, and imagines new ways of understanding and acting responsively toward plants. The resulting thought experiment ultimately rejects the position that there is only one legitimate way to invent, create, and produce knowledge about the world.