Despite the fact that plants make up 80% of biomass on Earth, sociology rarely examines human–plant relationships. Human societies are inherently dependent on plants, most obviously as the basis of food supply, ecosystems, atmospheric and climate regulation, and water cycles, as well as for sources of oxygen, medicine, fuel, and fibre. Society, or terrestrial animal life for that matter, could not exist without plants. Based on this recognition, here we lay the foundations for sociological plant studies, a field that studies the dialectical relationship between human societies and plants. We ground this foundation in a realist-materialist perspective that recognises the ontological independence of plants and does not reduce them to human social constructions. We show how considering plants can help us to understand the emergence of civilisations, state formation, and mechanisation of production at the macro-level, and how human–plant interactions shape everyday life at a more micro-level. We present our formulation of sociological plant studies as a starting point for future research.

尽管植物占地球生物量的80％，但社会学很少研究人与植物之间的关系。人类社会天生就依赖植物，最明显的是作为食物供应，生态系统，大气和气候调节，水循环以及氧气，药品，燃料和纤维来源的基础。没有植物就不可能存在社会或陆地动物生命。基于这种认识，我们在这里奠定了社会学植物研究的基础，该领域研究了人类社会与植物之间的辩证关系。我们以现实主义-唯物主义的观点为基础，该观点认识到植物的本体论独立性，并不将其归结为人类的社会建构。我们展示了考虑使用植物如何帮助我们了解文明的出现，国家的形成，宏观生产的机械化以及人与植物的相互作用如何在更微观的层面上塑造日常生活。我们介绍社会学植物研究的方法，作为未来研究的起点。