Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants (First). Milkweed Editions Kimmerer, R. (2024). The serviceberry: Abundance and reciprocity in the natural world. Scribner

What can a Saskatoon Berry teach us about engaging in economic relationships and decision-making? In this book review, we review two books together in light of this issue’s theme: two-eyed seeing. We read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s new book The serviceberry: Abundance and reciprocity in the natural world (2024), which offers readers a unique opportunity to reflect on foundational questions raised in her groundbreaking book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013). Working in economic development, it is easy for many of us to be caught up in the urgent day-to-day choices we must make. Rarely do we have the opportunity to reflect on how our cultural teachings and traditional economic relationships with the natural world can offer guidance to building an economy we are proud to be part of. Kimmerer’s books embed two-eyed seeing by incorporating lessons from Western science and Indigenous knowledge. In both books, Kimmerer explores the reciprocal relationship between humans and the natural world to reflect on modern economic life and an ethical way of being. She weaves together her personal experiences, knowledge of plants as a botanist, and traditional teachings as a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation to advocate for a more sustainable and respectful relationship with the environment in a way that may also transform the economy. Kimmerer uses storytelling and personal reflection to bridge knowledge systems and generate her arguments. In the latter half of Braiding Sweetgrass and at the heart of Serviceberry, Kimmerer explains that the modern operation of the economy is built on a principle of scarcity rather than reciprocity to which she attributes rising tensions for thinking across worldviews. Kimmerer observes how the principle of reciprocity can be found everywhere in thriving ecosystems, and finds that it fits well with an approach to economics focusing on local exchange networks that she argues may be critical for making choices for a more sustainable economic future. Kimmerer uses storytelling not just to share knowledge but also as a method of inquiry—one that challenges assumptions about how we relate to the land and one another. Rather than only presenting abstract arguments, she turns to lived experiences, her knowledge of plants, and traditional narratives to illustrate how economies of reciprocity already exist in the natural world. These stories invite readers to reconsider what it means to take, to give, and to sustain in a good way, offering lessons that contrast with dominant economic models built on competition and scarcity. Through each story, Kimmerer provides an entry point for reflection, asking how we might learn from the land’s own patterns of generosity and balance. In Braiding Sweetgrass, each chapter draws the reader in as if one is listening to a talk or lecture by Kimmerer. Rather than write to present an argument, Kimmerer invites the reader to share in her experiences and contemplate the questions that emerge while she navigates a world that is both simple and complex, informed by Indigenous knowledge from the land, her family and community, as well as by Western knowledge through her training in ethnobotany. Each chapter emerges from a lesson learned from selected medicines and stories that have shaped some of the most impactful memories of her life. Kimmerer uses those lessons to ask difficult questions about how and why we face the insurmountable challenges that we have today, such as food insecurity, climate change, and economic inequality. Braiding Sweetgrass explores the reciprocal relationship between people and the land, which is first introduced through the teachings present in the story of Skywoman. Skywoman is the central figure in the Haudenosanee creation story whose fall from …