TY - JOUR
T1 - Negotiating belonging
T2 - Plants, people, and indigeneity in northern Australia
AU - Martin, Richard J.
AU - Trigger, David
PY - 2015/5/28
Y1 - 2015/5/28
N2 - This article focuses on human-plant relations, drawing on ethnographic research from northern Australia's Gulf Country to address the concept of indigeneity. Just as the identities of 'Indigenous' and 'non-Indigenous' people in this region are contextual and at times contested according to the vernacular categories of 'Blackfellas', 'Whitefellas', and 'Yellafellas', so too the issue of what 'belongs' in the natural world is negotiated through ambiguities about whether species are useful, productive, and aesthetically pleasing to humans, as well as local understandings about how plants and animals came to be located in the Gulf region. At the same time, plants' distinctive characteristics as plants shape their relations with humans in ways which affect their categorization as 'native' and 'alien' or 'introduced'. Focusing our analysis on three specific trees, we argue that attention to the 'plantiness' of flora contributes significantly to debates about indigeneity in society and nature. At the same time, our focus on human-plant relations contributes important context and nuance to current debates about human and other-than-human relations in a more-than-human world.
AB - This article focuses on human-plant relations, drawing on ethnographic research from northern Australia's Gulf Country to address the concept of indigeneity. Just as the identities of 'Indigenous' and 'non-Indigenous' people in this region are contextual and at times contested according to the vernacular categories of 'Blackfellas', 'Whitefellas', and 'Yellafellas', so too the issue of what 'belongs' in the natural world is negotiated through ambiguities about whether species are useful, productive, and aesthetically pleasing to humans, as well as local understandings about how plants and animals came to be located in the Gulf region. At the same time, plants' distinctive characteristics as plants shape their relations with humans in ways which affect their categorization as 'native' and 'alien' or 'introduced'. Focusing our analysis on three specific trees, we argue that attention to the 'plantiness' of flora contributes significantly to debates about indigeneity in society and nature. At the same time, our focus on human-plant relations contributes important context and nuance to current debates about human and other-than-human relations in a more-than-human world.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84929714646&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/1467-9655.12206
DO - 10.1111/1467-9655.12206
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84929714646
SN - 1359-0987
VL - 21
SP - 276
EP - 295
JO - Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
JF - Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
IS - 2
ER -