“Ever since I was a little girl I liked to spend time with trees to connect and listen. When a hurricane knocked down a willow tree near my home I cried for days because it felt like losing a friend. I think that was the first time I understood how much trees hold for us. Now I study them in many forms and I keep returning to how they can mean many different things to different people. They are medicine, shelter, memory, and quiet witnesses to our lives. I look to them as reminders to stay steady and to keep growing in ways that are both rooted and open.”
– Chanelle Adams Writer, Researcher & Political Ecologist Madagascar – United States – Switzerland – Germany
Chanelle Adams is a writer, researcher, and political ecologist whose work explores the intertwined histories of people, plants, healing practices, and colonial archives. She studies how knowledge about trees and medicinal plants has circulated across Madagascar, France, and the Indian Ocean, revealing the intimate, often painful entanglements between empire, ecology, and care.
Through her research at the University of Lausanne and her broader scholarly work, Chanelle traces the stories carried by plants — from pharmacie-gasy traditions to the colonial medicinal collections of Marseille — showing how botanical lives reflect political histories and cultural memory. As a writer, she has contributed to publications such as The Funambulist, The Drift, Adi Magazine, and e-flux, and her reflections bridge ecology, history, and lived experience with rare sensitivity.
Her connection to trees is both intellectual and deeply personal. From the willow of her childhood to the medicinal species she studies, trees shape her understanding of resilience, care, and rootedness. She approaches them as teachers — bearing witness, holding memory, offering healing, and reminding us how to grow in ways that are both steady and open.
Chanelle stands as a guardian through research, writing, and remembrance. Her work helps us read the lives of trees not only as ecological forms, but as archives of history, emotion, and resistance.
Institutional profile (PhD student, Political Ecology — medicinal plants, University of Lausanne / IGD) https://igd.unil.ch/chanelleadams/en/presentation/ IgD
List of publications & academic output (IGD / University of Lausanne) https://igd.unil.ch/chanelleadams/en/publications/
Academic profile (with thesis and publications list) https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chanelle-Adams
Master-thesis / early research: “Pharmacie Gasy: Epistemic Landscape Of Northern Madagascar Across Values and Meaning” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349412181_Pharmacie_Gasy_Epistemic_Landscape_Of_Northern_Madagascar_Across_Values_and_Meaning Rese
Earlier project: “Mapping the Knowledge Economy of Medicinal Plants in Northern Madagascar: Information and Resource Flow in Traditional Health Practices” (2013, SIT Study Abroad) https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/1677/
Public essay / research-based work page “Pharmacy-Gasy & medicinal plant politics” (her website)
https://chanelleadams.info/pharmacy.html
Public profile on “The Funambulist” (cultural platform): biography and full description of her practice (writing, research, “ghost-tours”) https://thefunambulist.net/network/chanelle-adams TH
Podcast: “CHANELLE ADAMS /// The Politics of Phamarcy-Gasy in Madagascar” on The Funambulist — a conversation about medicinal plants, colonial history, and her research. https://thefunambulist.net/podcast/the-funambulist-podcast/chanelle-adams-politics-phamarcy-gasy-madagascar (Alternative streaming link via SoundCloud) https://soundcloud.com/the-funambulist/chanelle-adams-the-politics-of-phamarcy-gasy-in-madagascar SoundCloud
ARBRES À PALABRES for #dendrophiles edition for Antson’ny tontolo miaina #antsonytontolomiain
Chapitre 1 – The Guardians #antsonytontolomiaina
Chapter 2 — Trees: histories, symbols, ecological values #antsonytontolomiaina