Cropscapes and History

Reflections on Rootedness and Mobility

in Transfers
Author:
Francesca BrayUniversity of Edinburgh francesca.bray@ed.ac.uk

Search for other papers by Francesca Bray in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
,
Barbara HahnTexas Tech University b.hahn@alumni.unc.edu

Search for other papers by Barbara Hahn in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
,
John Bosco LourdusamyIndian Institute of Technology Madras jblsamy@iitm.ac.in

Search for other papers by John Bosco Lourdusamy in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
, and
Tiago SaraivaDrexel University tsaraiva@drexel.edu

Search for other papers by Tiago Saraiva in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
View More View Less
Restricted access

Crops are a very special type of human artifact, living organisms literally rooted in their environments. Crops suggest ways to embed rootedness in mobility studies, fleshing out the linkages between flows and matrices and thus developing effective frameworks for reconnecting local and global history. Our focus here is on the movements, or failures to move, of “cropscapes”: the ever-mutating ecologies, or matrices, comprising assemblages of nonhumans and humans, within which a particular crop in a particular place and time flourishes or fails. As with the landscape, the cropscape as concept and analytical tool implies a deliberate choice of frame. In playing with how to frame our selected cropscapes spatially and chronologically, we develop productive alternatives to latent Eurocentric and modernist assumptions about periodization, geographical hierarchies, and scale that still prevail within history of technology, global and comparative history, and indeed within broader public understanding of mobility and history.

  • Collapse
  • Expand

Transfers

Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies

Metrics

All Time Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 1315 436 39
Full Text Views 86 17 2
PDF Downloads 133 32 3