Embedded Files
This theme encompasses the impacts of borders on the areas confined by them, borders that are often necessitated by continued colonial violence. This exhibit seeks to expand beyond and challenge these colonial boundaries through the exploration of seeds and their people, hence the name “Borderless Seed Stories.”
Useful Terms
Useful Terms
Colonialism
Colonialism
“Colonialism itself is a social experiment, a multilayered system of explicit and implicit controls designed to strip colonized peoples of their culture, confidence and power. With tools ranging from the brute military and police aggression used to put down strikes and rebellions, to a law that once banned the Puerto Rican flag, to the dictates handed down today by the unelected fiscal control board, residents of these islands have been living under that web of controls for centuries.” (Battle for Paradise, Naomi Klein, pg. 28)
Colonialidad Del Poder
Colonialidad Del Poder
Coloniality of Power: a concept introduced by Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano in which colonialism is perpetuated by 5 relationships of power: work, nature, sex/gender, collective authority, and (inter)subjectivity.
Seed Poetry
Seed Poetry
what borders?
where are they drawn?
is it where the land gives way to the sea?
or where the conifers cede themselves to the deciduous trees?
and what about
the stretch of sand, the waxing and waning of the tide on the beach?
the large swaths of old growth forests where the pines and the oaks twine their branches?
are the borders
the mountains, older than old, whom endless people have climbed and crossed?
the deserts, where millions live and eat and breathe?
the sea, where we fish and swim and sail?
are the borders where we bleed?
are the borders there to keep the outsider outside?
or are they there to keep our universality contained?
— Julian Creutz
Internationalism
Internationalism
As we explore the concept of borders and how they impact people and their foodways and seed practices, we must also address the term “international.” Coined by Jeremy Bentham in 1780, “international” is a legal concept that, during its inception, “gestured toward a new law of nations.” A great tension point was how an internationalism constructed with valiant themes of peace and solidarity could contend with an expanding, colonial empire. In many ways, internationalism “was a project of the developed North Atlantic world… thoroughly imbued with racism, paternalism, and an inability to imagine that those outside this hegemonic region would be genuinely equal participants in global governance.” The imagined global interconnections of the colonial Europeans, some realized and others not, were often violent and dystopian, the consequences of which continue to affect our real worlds today.
Yohann Koshy, co-editor of the New International and deputy editor of the Guardian’s op-ed, however, argues that “international” has the potential of border-defying solidarity. He references author of “Algiers, Third World Capital” Elaine Mokhtefi, who iterates the significance of Algeria’s post-independence “open-door policy of aid to the oppressed,” making Algeria a foreign base for activists and liberation movements in the second half of the 20th century. Mokhtefi explains that, “Being international was a way of remaining political, finding out what was happening abroad, taking advantage of what opportunities there were.” Koshy concurs, highlighting how internationalism can become a “necessary strategy in the post-colonial era,” creating ties of solidarity amongst countries whose ideological differences may have initially divided them.
“Internationalism has always been a protean concept. Some take it as a synonym for globalization; for others it means co-operation through multilateral institutions; and, after the Cold War, it simply meant, in the words of Perry Anderson, the ability of the United States to ‘extend its military power to Eurasia’ (to the former Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan etc). For the Left, internationalism is rooted in a revolutionary, working-class and anti-imperialist tradition.”
In this vein, we hope to be able to acknowledge the troubling effects internationalism has had on our conceptions of borders and boundaries, but also remain hopeful to the anti-imperialist tradition that continues to seed the resistance to imperial co-opting of global connection and the ongoing struggle towards sovereignty and justice.
Lativian Tomatoes: Seeds That Defy Borders
Lativian Tomatoes: Seeds That Defy Borders
The article “Actually existing tomatoes: Politics of memory, variety, and empire in Latvian struggles over seeds” by Guntra A. Aistara begins with the experience of a farm in Latvia selling hundreds of varieties of tomato seeds. Members of the State Plant Protection Agency declared that the seeds they were selling were illegal as they were not found in the European Union’s (EU) Common Catalogue of Varieties of Vegetable Species. As a result of protest, the hearing for the farm was canceled, but Aistara explains, “The innocent packet of tomato seeds and its alleged transgression exposed the way in which Latvia’s shift from the westernmost edge of the Soviet Union to the easternmost border of the European Union has reconfigured boundaries of cultural memories associated with tastes and social relations, as well as the shifting scientific, bureaucratic, and economic categorization of seeds and plants throughout history” (Aistara 13).
Latvia sits at the nexus of many empires, and its shifting experience in said empires is reflected in the way seeds have been understood, valued, and categorized over time. Categorization of seeds is an exercise of empire. Seeds inherently transcend geopolitical and colonial boundaries; the tomato seeds in Latvia have no knowledge of if they exist in the Soviet Union or the European Union. They do not know if they’re present on the EU Common Catalogue. The urge to force seeds into boxes and decide which ones are “allowed” ignores the rich social and cultural networks and memories that intertwine with the seeds and go beyond the borders set out as exercises of empire and colonial power.
Interactive Activity: Imagined Borders
Interactive Activity: Imagined Borders
On the blank U.S. map, consider where you think the state borders are.
Now, click here to open up the image below to see where the “actual” borders are and compare with your imaginings.
This activity illustrates how illusory the borders that define our lives are and is an invitation to consider their role in your life and the way we structure our world.
Feel free to right-click the image above and hit "download" or "save" for a printable mini version of this Theme Exploration! Click here for a helpful tutorial for how to fold a one-page zine.
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