Why am I passionate about this?
I started my career as an academic social scientist and seem set to end it as a gardener, small-scale farmer, and accidental ecological activist. I’ve learned a lot of things along the way from these different parts of my life that I channel in my writing. I don’t claim much expertise. In fact, I think claims to expert knowledge that can ‘solve’ modern problems are a big part of our modern problems. I’ve always been interested in how people and communities try to figure things out for themselves, often by picking up the pieces when big ideas have failed them. My writing arises out of that.
Chris' book list on why we must adopt low-impact local food systems
Why did Chris love this book?
It’s easy to get caught up in the immediate issues around food, farming, and the need to transition to localism.
Yunkaporta’s book weaves them into a far larger tapestry concerning the need for renewable long-term culture. I like the way he sharpens indigenous knowledge unsentimentally into a practical tool with a purpose that’s potentially available to everyone, not a mystical cosmology available only to a few.
Endlessly thought-provoking ruminations on how to live from a local ecological base, and how modern culture disrupts us from doing so.
3 authors picked Sand Talk as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Winner, Small Publishers' Adult Book of the Year, Australian Book Industry Awards 2020
This remarkable book is about everything from echidnas to evolution, cosmology to cooking, sex and science and spirits to Schrödinger’s cat.
Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from an Indigenous perspective. He asks how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently?
Sand Talk provides a template for living. It’s about how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It’s about how we learn and how we remember. It’s about…
- Coming soon!