Uprooting “Indigeneity” in South Africa's Western Cape: The Plant That Moves

Abstract

Amid global concerns about climate change, scientists suggest that South African rooibos tea's indigenous ecosystem may be shifting southward. By 2011, rooibos farmers were beginning to worry that the plant was abandoning its "proper" home and undermining both their livelihoods and their rooted sense of belonging.Using the framework of plant and human mobility to explore the impact of environmental changes on one farming community, I investigate how climate change unsettles not only livelihoods but also social cosmologies. If rooibos's growing range shifts, how will it affect the ways that farmers understand and claim their heritage in connection to this indigenous plant? How does the uprooting of a plant's indigeneity influence ideas about cultural indigeneity as rooted in place? What role can anthropology play in theorizing ecological mobility? In addressing these questions, I contend that understanding the effects of climate change also involves destabilizing the idea of place. By focusing on plant mobility, I articulate a theory of geographical precarity: I imply that people's uncertain claims to belonging in place merged with uncertainty of the rootedness of place itself. I conclude by examining industry efforts to delineate and control where rooibos could "legally" grow through the creation of geographical indications. [climate change, indigeneity, South Africa, precarity, place] RESUMEN En medio de las preocupaciones globales sobre el cambio climático, los científicos sugieren que el ecosistema indígena del té rojo de SurÁfrica se puede estar desplazando hacia el sur. Hacia el 2011, los cultivadores de té rojo se empezaron a preocupar de que la planta estaba abandonando su "propia" casa y socavando tanto su fuente de sustento como su enraizado sentido de pertenencia. Utilizando el marco de movilidad de plantas y animales, exploro el impacto de cambios ambientales en una comunidad agrícola; investigo cómo el cambio climático altera no solamente la fuente de sustento sino también las cosmologías sociales. Si el rango para el cultivo de té rojo cambia, ¿cómo afectará la manera en que los agricultores entienden y afirman su herencia cultural en conexión con esta planta indígena? ¿Cómo el arrancar de raíz la indigenidad de una planta influencia ideas sobre la indigenidad cultural enraizada en un lugar? ¿Qué papel puede la antropología jugar en teorizar la movilidad ecológica? Abordando estas preguntas, argumento que entender los efectos del cambio climático también envuelve desestabilizar la idea de lugar. Al enfocar la movilidad de plantas, articulo una teoría de la precariedad geográfica. Implico que las reclamaciones inciertas sobre pertenencia a un lugar se combinaron con la incertidumbre del enraizamiento de lugar en sí mismo. Concluyo examinando los esfuerzos de la industria en delinear y controlar dónde el té rojo puede "legalmente" crecer a través de la creación de Indicaciones Geográficas. [cambio climático, indigenidad, SurÁfrica, precariedad, lugar]

Big Coffee in Brazil: Historical Origins and Implications for Anthropological Political Economy

“…In some respects, this approach is similar to Sarah Ives's studies of rooibos in South Africa (, ). Her work traces how a wild, uncultivated species was transformed into a mass‐produced agricultural commodity.…”

Negotiating belonging: plants, people, and indigeneity in northern Australia

“…Accounts of Indigenous peoples’ knowledge and use of plants are especially prevalent in the anthropological literature, dating back to Lee's work with the !Kung San (1968), and continuing with numerous studies focused on diverse groups’ ethno‐botanical knowledge into the present (Cheikhyoussef, Shapi, Matengu & Ashekele ; Clarke ; Ellen, Parkes & Bicker ; Nazarea ; Nombo & Leach ; Panghal, Vedpriya, Yadav, Kumar & Yadav ; Walsh ). Research across a number of settings in the formerly colonized world has also focused on settlers’ and settler‐descendants’ relationships with ‘native’ plants, as well as those of more recent migrants, with numerous scholars noting ambivalent attitudes towards such flora (as well as ‘native’ fauna) amongst these categories of persons (for the United States: Ott ; Robbins ; for Canada: Buijs, Elands & Langers ; Larson ; for South Africa: Comaroff & Comaroff ; Ives ; Pooley ; for New Zealand: Fisher ; Pawson & Brooking ; Wassilieff ; for Australia: Archer & Beale ; Arthur ; Bligh ; Boyd ; Flannery ; Seddon ). Much less discussed is how Indigenous and non‐Indigenous people relate to ‘alien’/‘introduced’ (or ‘exotic’, ‘non‐indigenous’, or ‘non‐native’) species of plants, and how such relationships trouble the opposition between ‘native’ and ‘alien’/‘introduced’ species .…”

Farming the South African “Bush”: Ecologies of belonging and exclusion in rooibos tea

“…These relations had become more unstable as farms turned increasingly toward seasonal employment. Despite the hopeful rhetoric that accompanied the end of white minority rule in 1994, the late 1990s marked a period of economic stagnation and changing relations of production in South Africa's agricultural sector (Ives ; Peet ). Even with the growth in rooibos sales after the end of apartheid‐era sanctions, many poor in the rooibos‐growing region found themselves unable to find steady work on farms.…”