Human-nature relationship admits the same negotiated conflicts as human relationships

Evidence

We must interact, but how far am I entitled to assert myself against or impose myself on the other? We must adapt to one another, but is one party always to be the one who adapts and the other to be adapted to? How much must we leave for the other? How much can we expect to share? Here there is not just one play of exchange between self and other, but multiple and contextual ones. We cannot, any more than in the human case, stereotype the relationship as one of love and harmony, excluding all disharmony and conflict. Although we may aim for a relationship of mutual enrichment, cooperation and friendship, we may often have to settle for that of respectful but wondering strangers (not necessarily second best). — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 516

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘how much must we leave for the other?’ negotiation ethics transfers interpersonal ethics (ch11 nurturance discussion) onto multispecies terms — useful bridge for the polyad. — connects to: Ecological relationships can remain continuous through constant change — Kyle Whyte, Settler Colonialism, Ecology, and…, 30; Sweetgrass recolonizing disrupted land teaches that brokenness lies in human-land relationship — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1232
• SEED: Angle for an essay: the ‘respectful but wondering strangers’ option as an alternative to both eco-harmony utopias and utilitarian resource frames.