My interview with a mountain: A curious and imaginative practice of speculative fabulation

Abstract

How do we listen to the unheard voices of the landscape and tell their stories? This article explores Hannah Arendt’s concept of plurality, Ursula Le Guin’s storytelling, and Aldo Leopold’s ecological philosophy to understand and engage with multispecies stories. Through a storytelling session with a coffee farmer and a speculative interview with a mountain, inspired by Le Guin’s (2015 [1974]) short story ‘The Author of the Acacia Seeds’, this article conducts a playful and creative act of fabulation. Moving beyond Arendt’s (2018) concept of plurality, it considers a political space open to heterogeneity. This approach invites reflection on organisations’ ethical obligations concerning heterogeneity. By relating Arendt’s ideas to Leopold’s (1949) idea to “think like a mountain”, the article highlights how both perspectives encourage a broader, more ethical engagement with the world. This interdisciplinary exploration bridges creativity, philosophy, and ethics, creating a deeper connection between humans and the worlds around us.