Dr Patrick Jones is currently on a 14-month research trip riding his bicycle, with other members of Artist as Family, up the east coast of Australia, free-camping and documenting all the free-to-gather autonomous edibles that can be found along the way: theartistasfamily.blogspot.com

Literary Stiles and Symbolic Culture

Returning to the Problem of Writing

In an attempt to uncover all the drivers that construct a society that is inherently anti-ecological Jones, in this chapter of his doctoral thesis, Walking for food: regaining permapoesis, turns the lens onto writing itself and offers up a provocation: Does writing erode ecological intelligence? We know or believe writing constructs civil intelligence, that is intelligence required for growing cities and other anthropocentric environments, but does it aid or hinder the development of ecological society? The chapter takes the form of a letter written to writer and environmentalist Maya Ward. Maya's reply can be read as part of Jones' full thesis, available through the UWS library and online databases.