Papers presented by Bryan Kauma since 2019

2024 Providence, Rhode Island

"Fruit trees do not bring in money Belonging, Indigeneity and the politics of informal indigenous plant nurseries in Hazyview, Mpumalanga, South Africa"

Abstract:

Plant species in southern Africa are remarkably extensive. Historically, different African communities have relied on indigenous plants for their daily survival. Either for food, medicine, aesthetic or recreational purposes, African indigenous plants have shaped, and been shaped by the social, environmental, political and economic landscape of (southern) Africa. Thus naturally, plantscapes are at the centre of both development and conflict within society. Using the story of informal indigenous plant nurseries in South Africa’s Hazyview town in Mpumalanga province, this paper explores how African indigenous plants are kingpins in the contested economic survival of society. Equally, they are political, steering an array of cultural and economic tensions over their control – how to grow, preserve and distribute plants. As this paper will show, informal indigenous plant nurseries emerge as a fecund voice in resource management, galvanizing tensions on the boundaries of authority and culture. Relying on a variety of sources including oral testimonies, it demonstrates how nurseries are an incubator for African indigenous knowledge and management of local resources and have been instrumental for both the survival and social control of plants and society in an increasingly expanding anthropogenic, resource governance and indigeneity crisis.