NEHU Shillong Hosts Historic Global Plant Humanities Summit as Scholars from Across the World Reimagine Humanity’s Bond with Nature

NEHU Shillong Hosts Historic Global Plant Humanities Summit as Scholars from Across the World Reimagine Humanity’s Bond with Nature

Formal launch of the Book of Abstracts

Landmark International Conference and Abstract Volume Launch Place Northeast India at the Centre of Emerging Global Environmental Humanities Discourse

TONOY CHAKRABORTY

NEHU, Shillong: In a defining academic and ecological moment for Northeast India, North-Eastern Hill University inaugurated the Third International Conference on Global Plant Humanities (GPH 2026), bringing together scholars, writers, environmental thinkers, artists, and researchers from across the world to explore the evolving relationship between humanity and the botanical world.

Held from May 8 to 10 at the scenic Shillong campus of NEHU under the theme “Botanical Life in Art, Science, and Imagination,” the conference is being described by organisers and participants as one of the largest and most intellectually ambitious global gatherings ever dedicated to Plant Humanities – a rapidly emerging interdisciplinary field that examines the ecological, cultural, literary, philosophical, and political dimensions of plant life.

The inaugural day witnessed the formal launch of the Book of Abstracts (ISBN: 978-93-49692-45-9), a monumental scholarly volume containing nearly 150 abstracts contributed by researchers and academics from India and various countries around the world. The release ceremony was attended by distinguished intellectuals including Sanjib Baruah, Juan Carlos Galeano, Rakhee Moral, Mala Renganathan, and Jyotirmoy Prodhani.

Speaking during the launch ceremony, Prof. Sanjib Baruah drew a deeply symbolic comparison between books and plants, describing books as living entities that preserve “history, memories, hopes, and aspirations.” His reflections resonated strongly with the spirit of the conference, which seeks to dismantle anthropocentric approaches to knowledge and foreground the living agency of the botanical world.

Prof. Jyotirmoy Prodhani, joint convener of the conference and one of the leading academic voices behind the initiative, expressed gratitude to Mahabahu.com and the Mahabahu Climate Forum (MCF) for publishing the abstract volume as an act of intellectual solidarity and environmental commitment. The gesture was widely appreciated by participants, many of whom noted the importance of independent media and climate-oriented platforms in supporting critical ecological scholarship and emerging environmental discourses from the Global South.

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The role played by Mahabahu Climate Forum deserves special recognition in an era when environmental conversations are often reduced to policy rhetoric and political spectacle. By extending support to a pioneering academic initiative such as the Global Plant Humanities Conference, MCF has demonstrated how media platforms and civil society institutions can meaningfully contribute to the growth of ecological literacy, interdisciplinary dialogue, and climate consciousness. Its collaboration with scholars, universities, and environmental thinkers reflects an important bridge between public discourse and academic inquiry – something urgently needed in the climate-fragile landscapes of Northeast India and beyond.

The conference itself represents a remarkable convergence of disciplines and cultures. Hosted by the Department of English, NEHU, in collaboration with national and international academic institutions, the event explores how plants shape literature, spirituality, Indigenous traditions, memory, ecology, politics, and even human identity.

The keynote speakers include globally respected scholars and environmental thinkers such as Zilkia Janer, Juan Carlos Galeano, Patrycja Austin, Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, Nirmal Selvamony, and noted environmentalist and author Soumyadeep Datta.

Their presentations traverse an astonishing intellectual terrain – from Amazonian oral narratives and Indigenous ecological cosmologies to Khasi sacred stories, posthumanism, ecofeminism, plant intelligence, climate anxiety, memory, spirituality, colonial botany, and environmental justice. The conference positions plants not merely as passive background entities but as active participants in human civilization, storytelling, ethics, and planetary survival.

One of the most striking dimensions of the conference is its strong engagement with Indigenous and local ecological knowledge systems. Papers presented during the sessions explore themes such as Khasi cosmologies, bamboo culture in Majuli, tea plantation memory in Assam, Naga forest spirituality, Himalayan ecological memory, and women-led botanical traditions. These discussions reflect a broader intellectual shift occurring globally – one that increasingly recognizes Indigenous wisdom and community-based ecological practices as central to humanity’s response to climate collapse and biodiversity loss.

The conference also elevates Northeast India into a crucial global conversation on environmental humanities. Long celebrated for its biodiversity, Indigenous cultures, forests, rivers, and ecological traditions, the region is now emerging as an important intellectual site for climate discourse and ecological philosophy. Scholars at the conference repeatedly emphasized that places like Meghalaya and the Northeast possess not only ecological significance but also philosophical and cultural frameworks capable of reshaping global understandings of nature and coexistence.

The organisers – led by Prof. Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, Prof. Jyotirmoy Prodhani, Prof. Mousumi Guha Banerjee, Prof. Rakhee Moral, Prof. John C. Ryan, and Goutam Majhi – have been widely praised for conceptualizing and executing an event of such international scale and intellectual depth. Their effort reflects years of academic dedication and a visionary attempt to place the humanities at the forefront of planetary conversations.

Equally commendable are the hundreds of participating scholars, researchers, writers, and students whose works collectively form a living archive of humanity’s evolving relationship with plants and ecology. The diversity of themes – from folklore and phytopoetics to vegan ethics, botanical memory, environmental trauma, postcolonial ecology, and Indigenous stewardship – reveals how the humanities are increasingly becoming central to climate discourse and environmental futures.

At a time when the world is facing accelerating climate disasters, species extinction, ecological alienation, and environmental injustice, the Third International Conference on Global Plant Humanities arrives not merely as an academic event but as a profound intellectual intervention. It challenges humanity to rethink its place in the living world and asks whether civilizations can survive without restoring respect for the silent vegetal systems that sustain life itself.

From the pine-covered hills of Shillong, the conference has sent a powerful message to the world: the future of humanity may depend not only on technological progress or political negotiations, but also on our willingness to listen once again to forests, rivers, seeds, roots, and the wisdom embedded within the botanical world.

08-05-2026

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