Settler colonialism in vegetal worlds: exploring progress and resilience at the margins of the Anthropocene

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the intersections of vegetal ontologies and contemporary practices of settler colonialism. The rising popularity of the concept of the Anthropocene fails to give account to nonhuman encounters that shape contemporary sensibilities. As such, this paper explores the role of vegetal being in settler colonial practices to disrupt the efficacy of anthropocentric representations of the world. In concepts like ‘invasive species,’ ‘blight’ and ‘resilience,’ settler colonial metaphors construct the vegetal world alongside the practices of colonial expansion and capitalist globalization. To recover the occlusion of the vegetal world from purview, three cases will be explored to connect the role of automation (as mechanical processes and unconscious action) with the failures and inherent limitations of the settler project. This exploration begins with an examination of Fordlândia's failed efforts to develop scientific agriculture in the Amazon in the 1920s through settler fantasies of progress. This is followed by an examination of the concept of urban blight in the racialized reconfiguration of Detroit's green space following the 2008 financial crisis. Finally, through an examination of the role of transition agriculture in post-contact Haudenosaunee land tenure practices, the paper proposes some ways to recover the representation of vegetal world in contemporary situations. The intersections of settler colonial critique and vegetal ontologies produce new avenues for addressing decolonial practices and resistance.