It would be silly to study weeds "on their own," wouldn't it? You can't even define a weed except as relative to something else, e.g. other plants, its position (out of place), sometimes the way it looks, or its potential as a disease carrier, or the damage it does to cultivated plants. Even at Monsanto, manufacturer of Roundup, weeds are systemic by definition. Weeds are treated as lots of things in "indigenous cultures." Cross-cultural evidence is that farmers throughout the world have a concept of "weed." Allen Johnson, a UCLA anthropologist, has written about a Matsigenga man who was criticized by other men in his village because his field was dirty -- it was full of weeds. Women in the Kenyan village where I do research also have a concept of weed and they relate this to cleanliness of the fields. Weeding is almost universally devalued as well, despite its importance (as we know from the importance of herbicides in industrial agriculture). I have looked at cross-cultural literature systematically for discussions of weeds and therefore have real evidence for arguing that "weed," as "plant out of place," is a concept people deal with cross-culturally because they have to. "Weed" is a construct because some plants create real, tangible, cross-cultural problems in the world, both with weeds that are there before much external intrusion, and weeds that are brought through the expansion of the world-economy. There is evidence of conscious weed control in many kinds of agriculture, including some tree cultures where suckers are regularly pulled up (think baobabs on the Little Prince's planet). Crosby seems to be the one author eco-folks think of when they think of weeds, but there are others, including Aldo Leopold's brief paper "what is a weed," and a chapter in Michael Pollan's Second Nature (some of which I don't agree with). Shiva's Seed paper also fits in this category, as does Mary Douglas, Purity and Pollution, and Simone de Beauvoir's discussion of the Other (weeds are a kind of Other). The great economist of women's work in agriculture, Ester Boserup, also wrote much about weeds (and still writes much about women's labor). I have colleagues who do work in rainforests with indigenous peoples identifying plants, and they write about "weeds." At the meetings of the American Anthropological Association this past December, I heard a biological anthropologist who does ecological work in the Amazon talking about weeds and herbicides. There was also an article in (if I remember correctly) Cultural Survival perhaps a year or two ago about a man in the San Francisco bay area who was driving people mad by doing unsolicited plantings all over the place. It was seen as a kind of vandalism -- he would import non-indigenous seeds, a kind of Johnny Appleseed with a chip on his shoulder (Johnny Appleseed was a weed disseminator himself). Then there is the story of the attempt in (I think) New York to build a garden composed "only" of truly indigenous plants (the definition of which is an issue unto itself). But the garden was impossible to maintain, because or all the imports (many having been around for centuries) which kept intruding on this "natural" garden. Weeds are an enormous issue cross-culturally, but one that is virtually ignored. Actually, there is relatively little written given the enormity of the issue. Weeds and weeding are undervalued, and the topic is undervalued. [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Re: weeds. >To study weeds on their own seems reductionist. Alfred Crosby, Ecological >Imperialism, points out that weeds are the biotic baggage of colonial powers >so that the dandelion becomes the true indicator of the British Empire. Weeds, >in indigenous cultures, are treated as edible plants, medicinals, etc. But >the study of weeds must be related back to the human cultures, political >economies, and social organizations that bring the weeds along. >Devon Pena. >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue Jan 23 08:59:39 1996 Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 10:54:08 -0500 (EST) From: "Lisa Reimer-bosh (UND)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: weeds In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ecofeminism encompasses a variety of issues; rainforest, weeds, woman's environment like home & work. many issues involved. so why not talk about weeds and what relavance they have to women. how about gardens, allergies, alternative medicines, etc. i like reading what you all have to say about weeds. i only have a lake with ducks. anyone have information on the life of a duck? somehow, my ducks have become very friendly. i could be the weeds in the backyard. Thanks for reading my first message to you. Lisa reimer from tampa, florida
