Decolonizing Paradise
A Radical Ethnography of Environmental Stewardship in the Caribbean
Summary
"In Decolonizing Paradise, Rosalina Díaz blends the voices of scientists with local healers and activists to explore a radical ethnography of plants and people in the Caribbean. Through their lived experiences in this crucially important bioregion, herbalists, brujas, and western-trained scientists resurrect and reveal indigenous and diasporic plant wisdom that has long been denigrated. This collection is an important ethnobotanical starting point for the colonized people of the Caribbean to redress centuries of cultural and environmental injustice."
—Robert Voeks, Author of The Ethnobotany of Eden: Rethinking the Jungle Medicine Narrative
"At a time when the world is intensely focused on finding solutions to complex and existential environmental issues, Decolonizing Paradise is an indispensable tool for those wanting to engage in collective action in the Caribbean. This timely anthology of scholars, scientists, farmers, grassroots activists and environmentalists provides both historical context and an agenda for the sustainable environmental future of the region, with a particular emphasis on Puerto Rico.
Decolonizing Paradise will quickly become essential reading for those interested in the Caribbean’s environmental struggles, particularly as understood and analyzed by those who are currently in the trenches. Decolonizing Paradise also provides hope and inspiration for all those—students, policy makers, activists and scholars—who want to see change happen in the Caribbean."
—Felix V Matos Rodriguez, Chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY), Author of Women and Urban Change in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1820–1868
"Decolonizing Paradise is a must-read primer for anyone interested in an insider perspective of environmental stewardship in the Caribbean region, as told by the voices of those currently active in the movement. In recognizing the long-standing environmental conflicts, clashes and actions of local activists and community groups, this book rectifies historical omissions and misperceptions, and challenges the still prevailing narrative of inaction and dependence that has wrongly stigmatized this population for centuries."
—Alexis Massol-Gonzalez, Founding Director of Casa Pueblo of Adjuntas; Recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize (2002)
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Advance Praise
- Title
- Copyright
- About the editor
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Dedication
- Dedicación
- Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword (Nelson Alvarez Febles)
- Prefacio (Nelson Alvarez Febles)
- Acknowledgments
- Agradecimientos
- Introduction: A Radically Reimagined Ethnography of the Caribbean (Rosalina Díaz)
- Introducción: Una Etnografía del Caribe Radicalmente Reimaginada (Rosalina Díaz)
- Chapter 1: From Borikén to Puerto Rico: Landscape Memory as Historical Narrative (Rosalina Díaz)
- Capítulo 1: De Borikén a Puerto Rico: La memoria del paisaje como narrativa histórica (Rosalina Díaz)
- Chapter 2: The Jíbaro Legacy: An Ethnobotanical Account of Traditional Plant Use in the Cordillera Central of Puerto Rico (Gladys M. Nazario Muñiz)
- Capítulo 2: El Legado del Jíbaro un Relato Etnobotánico del Uso Tradicional de Plantas en la Cordillera Central de Puerto Rico (Gladys M. Nazario Muñiz)
- Chapter 3: Casa Pueblo: Community Struggles for Social Development and Protection of Natural Resources (Arturo Massol Deyá)
- Capítulo 3: Casa Pueblo: Luchas Comunitarias por el Desarrollo Social y la Protección de los Recursos Naturales (Arturo Massol Deyá)
- Chapter 4: Otra Cosa, Somos Otra Cosa (Tara Rodríguez Besosa)
- Chapter 5: Healing Paradise: A Grass Roots and Weeds Approach (María Benedetti)
- Capítulo 5: Sanando el Paraíso: Desde los Matojos, Desde las Raíces (María Benedetti)
- Chapter 6: Sacred Plants, Stones, and the Art of Dreaming (Jorge Baracutei Estevez)
- Capítulo 6: Plantas Sagradas, Piedras y el Arte de Soñar (Jorge Baracutei Estevez)
- Chapter 7: Traveling Traditions: Dominican Ethnobotany in Service of Caring for the Community (Ina Vandebroek)
- Chapter 8: Ancestral Medicine and Magic of Cuba (Juliet Díaz)
- Capítulo 8: Medicina Ancestral y la Magia de Cuba (Juliet Díaz)
- Chapter 9: A Vision for the Future (Gabriela Miranda-Diaz)
- Capítulo 9: Una Visión Para el Futuro (Gabriela Miranda-Diaz)
- Afterword: Reflections on Practice (Rosalina Díaz)
- Appendix Materia Medica: Plants and Remedies of the Caribbean (Rosalina Díaz and Peter Visscher)
- Contributors
- Series Index
Illustrations
Figure 0.1: Frances L. Dunston (19– to 2021)
Figure 1.1: The Majestic Ceiba (Ceiba Petandra L.) on Route 2 survives Hurricane Maria!
Figure 1.2: Living the aftermath
Figure 1.3: Puerto Rico land use map developed by the Puerto Rico Department of Natural Resources
Figure 1.4: Caribbean precipitation change (1900 to 2100)
Figure 1.5: The manner and style of gardening and planting of the Indians
Figure 1.6: Paleoenvironmental change, Cibao Valley (Dominican Republic)
Figure 1.7: Sweet potatoes, hagis (pimente) and coconut
Figure 1.8: How Indian women wash their children in the sea when the moon is full
Figure 1.9: Indian wounded by an arrow
Figure 1.10: Visiting a nearby Caserio (public housing complex) after Maria
Figure 2.4: Author at her mountain home←xv | xvi→
Figure 3.3: Puerto Rico’s National Model Forest
Figure 4.1: The flags of Otra Cosa
Figure 4.2: A depiction of Guabancex
Figure 4.5: Fixing up the house!
Figure 4.6: The author at Finca Otra Cosa
Figure 5.1: Spraying, military style. Is there anything left here to kill?
Figure 5.2: Poisoned coconut palm
Figure 5.7: Abrazo a La Tierra event, Cayey, PR 9/2013
Figure 6.1: Anandenthera Peregrina seeds
Figure 6.5: Agua Dulce Altar←xvi | xvii→
Figure 7.3: Mesa blanca: Author’s altar to Yemaya, with print by Puerto Rican artist Manny Vega
Figure 8.2: Ingredients (left) and Sopa de Pollo (right)
Figure 9.3: CUNY/SUNY students volunteering at Finca Gaia
Figure 9.4: Teacher showing CUNY student how to propagate an aloe plant
Figure 9.5: Earthship community center under construction
Figure 9.7: SUNY students volunteering at a tree planting event
Figure A.2: Petiveria alliacea L.: Anamú. Flowering stalk (left), aerial parts (right)
Figure A.3: Cocos nucifera L.: Coco, coco indio. Tree (left), fruit (right)
Figure A.4: Escoba (Wire Weed)
Figure A.5: Annona muricata L.: Guanábana. Fruit (left), branch with leaves and young fruit (right)
Figure A.6: Ricinus communis L.: Higuera, higuereta. Flower stalk (left), seeds (right)
Figure A.8: Mustard plant with beautiful yellow flowers; observe the wide and irregularly dentated leaves at the base in comparison with the upper leaves that are slender and less dentated.←xvii | xviii→
Figure A.9: Verdolaga (Purslane)
Figure A.11: Flat-topped inflorescence of Pluchea with beautiful pinkish florets
Foreword
The editor of this book defines it as radical, meaning emergent from and returning to the roots, and indicates that the voices that transmit the ancient knowledge of women and indigenous peoples of the Caribbean should not be conditioned by a reductionist and authoritarian science that claims a monopoly on intelligence.
Movements that advocate for the rights of local peoples/communities, gender equity, the rescue of ancestral and peasant knowledge, and solidarity with/and respect for nature hold reductionism as responsible for many of the current social and ecological problems: global warming and climate change, the destruction of entire ecosystems, the quantitative and qualitative increase in diseases, cultural homogenization, the excessive accumulation of wealth, and its counterpart, poverty, in which a large part of humanity lives. In place of the Cartesian paradigm, that assumes the whole as equal to the sum of the parts, we propose the multidimensional multiplicity of natural and social systems. The enormous and complex biological diversity that sustains our lives—plants, animals, insects, fish, trees, cereals, fruits, medicines, fibers, tubers, among others—and its ability to adapt to innumerable climatic, geographic, and cultural niches, is the result of the intelligence of local communities, not chance, as official science has often claimed.
Our Caribbean ancestors, the inhabitants of the Antilles before the European invasion, lived in close relationship with nature. Dominant science has constructed anthropocentric schemes to justify the destruction and domination of natural resources, repeating hierarchical narratives like mantras, the lion is the king ←xix | xx→of the jungle, or the big fish eats the small fish. However, modern ecology posits that nature is composed of complementary relationships, in which diversity gives rise to systemic stability.
The Taínos, the majority ethnic group in the Caribbean at the time of the conquest, were described by chroniclers as very healthy, “more vegetarian than carnivorous.” Farmers, hunters, fishermen, and gatherers, they fed on a huge variety of plants, fruits, bark, roots, insects, animals, fish, and birds. This rapport with the territory and biodiversity is at the root of the sustainable and productive relationship they had with the land, as well as one of the primary causes of the brutality with which they were enslaved and exterminated.
Contrary to what many have been taught, our ancestors were not enslaved solely for the purpose of extracting gold from the rivers. Europeans arrived in the Caribbean islands with empty ships’ holds or damaged supplies. They lacked bread, an essential staple of their diets. They tried and failed at planting wheat or other grains. As farmers, the peoples of the Caribbean harvested a great quantity, quality, and diversity of products. The main method of sowing was the montones or mounds that they made in the fields or conucos. Utilizing this method, they made casabe or casabí, a type of bread, by processing cassava, also known as manioc. According to nutritional studies, cassava is a food with high nutritional content, in some values higher than wheat-based bread. Unfortunately for the Taínos, it soon became the dietary staple for the invaders, essential for the continued conquest of other continental lands. In addition to forced labor, the rape of women, and mutilations, the colonizers demanded regular deliveries of bundles of cassava bread from the caciques, the chieftains. In 1521, on the now arid island of Mona, 27,500 pounds of cassava bread was reportedly delivered to Spanish settlers on their way to present-day Venezuela.
The harmonious and respectful relationship of our Caribbean ancestors with nature, allowed them to obtain all the elements needed for their sustenance by using strategies and practices that integrated natural environments and human communities. We maintain that the essence of this experience of sustainability has endured in many of the current practices of our peasants. At the same time, this heritage forms an enormous wealth of knowledge to build a sustainable future in our territories as an integral and necessary part of a decolonizing process, and a post-colonial future of local empowerment in partnership with mother nature.
Details
- Pages
- XXXII, 318
- Year
- 2023
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781433195419
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781433195426
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9781433195440
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9781433195433
- DOI
- 10.3726/b20012
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2023 (February)
- Keywords
- Ethnography Caribbean Environmental Stewardship Decolonization Agroecology sustainability Climate change Queer Farming Indigenous Self-determination Decolonizing Paradise A Radical Ethnography of Environmental Stewardship in the Caribbean Rosalina Diaz
- Published
- New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Oxford, Wien, 2023. XXXII, 318 pp., 107 b/w ill., 4 tables.
