acknowledging research partners

How, I wonder, might the performance of research itself be an imperial and civilizational project (Schuerich, 1997) that shuts down the possibility of the many voices of animate Earth, in its various forms, as acknowledged research partners – particularly given that ways of knowing which enable communication with and connection to non-human Others remain marginalized within most academic

(con)texts (Harvey, 2006b; Plumwood, 2002; see also, Cole, 2002; Kuokkanen, 2006)?

Perhaps the task is, as Beringer (2006) suggests, "to create a space and a platform to explore and authenticate types of knowledge and ways of knowing in need of resurrection, validation, and transformation for a post-modern resacrilized, spiritualized, sustainable world" (p. 41). This research attempts to do such a thing.