Catalogue of Tender Militancy:

Defence against emotional violence is taught through relying on extrovert supremacy strategies or the setting of boundaries that will not be respected. 

The plant kingdom has dedicated itself to creating tools to enforce and demand boundaries with predators that do not listen. It proposes responses ranging from thorns to spikes to fine hairs, chemical and visual signaling; not a one size fits all solution, but one catered to the environment, seasonality and relations specific to each plant. By using pain, discomfort and inconvenience their defensive physiology the attacker learns how to act in ways that respect the plant to redistribute the cargo of care. 

A battle strategy that can resist the ridgidity of the patriarchy has to be flexible, to adapt and evolve. In other words: it should be alive.



Legend of Tenderly Militant Attitudes


di-stance direction
hosting backup
pain as connector
pedagogy of risk

When talking about reinterpretations of militancy it is important to aknowledge the realities that weapons and militancy are often used to enforce systemic oppresions, and is in no way supported in this project. This manifesto is a counter approach, that seeks to desterilise the narrow ideas of weaponry, so that grassroot movements are not confined entirely to passifist methods. This manifesto centers the need for action, the need to see strength in softness, and to actively and critically reflect on the right to defend ourselves. The push here is for an offensive defence strategy that does not seek to develop militancy in order to trump over and abuse others, but to actively respond. It does not call for fighting fire with fire, but for unlearning the cycles of harm, and shifting softness and solidarity into a potent and powerful view, so that it can be our strength and their undoing. 
The following legend reinterprets how terms often used in the lexical field of militancy can be redefined and shifted to give us agency in this movement through language. 
WEAPON
a tool to level power hirachies

an extension to the body that enables the user to stay soft because it embodies qualities that allow the user to assert themselves in harsher contexts  

my teammate 

 PAINindicator of boundaries 


DEVIANT        straying from expected functions, intentions or norms 

not restricting the self

TENDER MILITANCY        the radical defence that makes space for an offensive defence strategy, aknowledging that caring includes the active protection of softness. However, rather than retaliating through the same militant approaches of tthe agressor, tender militancy draws its strength from its softness, and breaks the cycle of violence.
FRANKENSTEIN PHYSIOLOGY        the rejection of one body or form as the solution. By combining otherwise contradicting qualities, this approach values the potential of chaos, and the possibility that when tender qualities together, they may have the strength to resist and level up to their monstrous contexts.



This glossary is non-exhaustive and will continue to grow.
Last Updated 24.10.31



GLOSSARY OF 
MILITANT PHYSIOLOGY

Through research at the Biological Archive of the Naturhistorische Museum Wien, the following is a legend to disect the strategies of defence used in the plant kingdom. 
 






The defence mechanisms of plants can be classified into two categories:

CONSTITUTIVE: always present
INDUCED: present through activation 


They can further be classied into three main archetypes:
Morphological, Chemical and Mechanial.


Biological Legend
1 MORPHOLOGICAL  (deter, injure, kill)
a) spines: reduce feeding through pain or inconvenience
b) prickles: reduce feeding through pain or inconvenience
c) thorns: reduce feeding through pain or inconvenience
d) trichomes: barbs containing irritants/ poisions 
e) Raphides (sharp needles): reduce feeding through pain and                      effectively deliver plant toxins 
f)  hair: reduce feeding though inconveience
g) compound secretion eg. resins, lignins, silica, wax (alter tissue                  texture: predator slips off or gets stuck)
h) layers of armour: require the right tools to break through 
i) hard shells: act as armour
j) Gilbertian mimicry: illusion of presence of eggs to seem already 
k) laimed & dissuade more from laying eggs here
l) Batesian mimicry: imitating thorns 
m) camouflage 

2 CHEMICAL  (repel, warn, attract)
a) metabolites eg. phenolics, flavonoids, tannis (affect predator)
b) volatile organic compoud: airborn signals to warn other plants  
c) extrafloral nectar (attract predators of the plants predator)
d) trichomes (dispense chemical that cause irritation)

3 MECHANICAL
a) sensetouch, vibration, electrical or thermal stimuli &  inducing 
thigmonastic movement: lowers surface area for predator to attack & seem wilted (play dead) 
b) alter size
c)  strategic growth patterns



Please note that this is a non-exhaustive summary of the biological functions present in the plant kingdom. I invite you to take this approach of reinterpretation for personal use with you into further research: there is more where this came from.