On a cool October morning in 2019, I visited Babu on his small plot of farmland, now a lush patchwork of vegetables that his wife sells at weekly markets in nearby towns.
A Platform on Representation, Engagement, and Community
Tag: landscape
The Containable Quagmire? Colonial Environmental Legacies and Continued Attempts to Control Swamps
In August 1938, nearly 12,000 majority-white New Deal laborers employed by the federal government began clearing land, relocating communities, and erecting a forty-two-mile system of dams and dikes under the direction of the South Carolina Public Service Authority.
As Clear As Mud: Understanding Small-Scale Fishing in Late Medieval England Through the Landscape
Going on a research stay entailed long days in the archives, poring over medieval accounts written in hard-to-decipher script until my eyes were dry and my fingertips dirty with centuries-old dust.
Desertion & The Supernatural in the Desert
Surrounded by a highly biodiverse desert ecosystem, the Rio Grande River creates a desert oasis. Yet the land around it is dry and vast, nationally contested and controlled, and scattered with ruins that span centuries and tell stories of the past.
“East Meets West” in a Wardian Case
I am walking in a Wardian Case. Above the historic West India docks, above the newly opened Elizabeth line, yet dwarfed by the skyscrapers that crowd the dockland horizon of east London.
Sensing Landscape: From Ethnographic Walks to Heritage Making in Kodagu
The tactile power of the moist black mountain soil that has nourished the coffee estate for nearly a hundred and fifty years ran deep through the cold veins of my bare feet resting on the earth.
Asylums and the Question of Place: The Ghosts of Failed Health Initiatives
When an initiative fails, I like to think about what it got right, what it got wrong, and what parts can be modified and improved.
