Rethinking 'damaged' land with Coral Gardens: Reflections on contemporary agricultures
17 - 19 September 2024
Free University of Bolzano, F6
17 - 19 September 2024
Free University of Bolzano, F6
Rethinking ‘damaged’ land with Coral Gardens: Reflections on contemporary agricultures
17 – 19 September 2024
The sixth edition of this year’s Malinowski Forum for Ethnography symposium draws inspiration from the last opus of its eponym, namely Coral Gardens and Their Magic (Vol I) - A Study of the Methods of Tilling the Soil and ofAgricultural Rites in the Trobriand Islands (1935). Starting from the author’s remarkably detailed study of gardening techniques and his observations on magic, technology and the embeddedness of gardening in the social fabric, we will discuss ethnographic examples that deal with cultivation practices in other regions of the world. We would like to employ Coral Gardens to reflect on connections between land and water use, new technologies and magic in a contemporary context. A reconsideration of Malinowski, who made his empirical observations on soils, plants, rites and terminology over hundred years ago, shows that he included more-than-human actors in his analysis (e.g. Swanson 2017). Dooren et al. 2016, Lien & Pálsson and Feeley-Harnik 2021 have also pointed to the usefulness of classical anthropological texts, such as Morgan’s beaver, for thinking about multispecies social worlds. We are curious to see what inspiration Malinowski‘s Coral Gardens might offer to see our ethnographic experiences with a double gaze on more-than-humans and their entanglements with ideas of magic and technology. Gell (1988: 9) has pointed out that „it is technology which sustains magic, even as magic inspires fresh technical efforts“, and he took as his reference point the Trobriand gardeners, whose gardens are „arenas in which a magical scenario was played out, in the guise of productive activity“. The Trobriand Islanders challenged Malinowski to understand their rituals and magic in relation to growth; might there be an equivalent in contemporary situations when it comes to ideas linked, for example, to fertilizers or to various kinds of models of and tools for cultivating? The Trobrianders‘ attention to the imponderabilia of cultivation and their trust in „garden magicians“ (Malinowski 1966:12) could provide stimuli for rethinking contemporary situations of ‘multiple crises’. Trobriand islanders cultivate on rich soil that developed on dead coral reefs. What is currently and by whom, regarded as depleted? Which elements are considered signs of damage or degeneration, and how is the agency of human and more-than-human actors perceived when it comes to ideas of regeneration or transformation? Malinowski described the Trobrianders as passionate cultivators who generate an abundance of food and “push their conscientiousness [concerning gardening] far beyond the limits of the purely necessary” (ibid. p. 8). Moreover, they give the main part of their harvest to relatives or for festive occasions and leave the surplus to rot in the gardens or yams-houses. We wonder if and how “non-utilitarian” factors (ibid.) related to gifts, distribution, or waste are relevant for today’s understanding of agri- and aquacultures.
The aim of the symposium is to take Malinowski’s narratives on the Trobriands of ninety years ago as a springboard to reflect on aspects of contemporary cultivation practices and uses of land and water resources in the Anthropocene.
Planning for sharing ideas in a small circle, we invite nine anthropologists for two days to engage in an intensive exchange.
Elisabeth Tauber and Dorothy L. Zinn in collaboration with
Almut Schneider