Unsettled: On Learning to Honor Powerful Strangers in an "Immigrant World"

Abstract

Abstract: For people conscious and critical of their settler-colonial immigration heritage, the desire to forge and claim a deep connection with a plot of land can generate deep ambivalence. Engaging with Wall Kimmerer's reflections on indigeneity and migration, this essay explores the ways in which embodied and material practices of gardening and caring for the soil enable visceral recognition of both the urgency for – and the challenges associated with – decolonizing relationships with more-than-human beings that have been subjugated in diverse ways through colonial capitalism over time and space.