Weedy Life: Coloniality, Decoloniality, and Tropicality
Article
Article Title | Weedy Life: Coloniality, Decoloniality, and Tropicality |
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ERA Journal ID | 41572 |
Article Category | Article |
Authors | Henry, Rosita, Ramoutsaki, Helen, Long, Debbi, Acciaioli, Greg, Foale, Simon, Pocock, Celmara, McBain-Rigg, Kristin and Wood, Michael |
Editors | Lundberg, A. |
Journal Title | eTropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics |
Journal Citation | 22 (1), pp. 236-69 |
Number of Pages | 34 |
Year | 2023 |
Publisher | James Cook University |
Place of Publication | Australia |
ISSN | 1448-2940 |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.22.1.2023.3985 |
Web Address (URL) | https://journals.jcu.edu.au/etropic/article/view/3985 |
Abstract | Respect for any form of life entails nurturing all the potentialities proper to it, including those that might be unproductive from the human point of view. Are there lessons to be learnt about decolonisation of the tropics from a focus on ‘weeds’? The contributors to this photo-essay collectively consider here the lessons that can be learnt about the relationship between colonisation and decolonisation through a visual focus on life forms that have been defined as weeds and, consequently, subject to a contradictory politics of care, removal, and control – of germinating, blooming, and cutting. The essay demonstrates the continuing colonial tensions between aesthetic and practical evaluations of many plants and other lifeforms regarded as ‘invasive’ or ‘out of place’. It suggests a decolonial overcoming of oppositions. By celebrating alliances of endemics and ‘weeds’ regeneratively living together in patterns of complex diversity, we seek to transcend policies of differentiation, exclusion and even eradication rooted in colonial ontology. |
Keywords | weeds, environment, colonialism, decoloniality, tropics |
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020 | 440107. Social and cultural anthropology |
Byline Affiliations | James Cook University |
University of Newcastle | |
University of Western Australia | |
University of Southern Queensland |
https://research.usq.edu.au/item/yzx14/weedy-life-coloniality-decoloniality-and-tropicality
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