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In Rooting in a Useless Land, Chelsea Fisher examines the deep histories of environmental-justice conflicts in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. She draws on her innovative archaeological research in Yaxunah, an Indigenous Maya farming community dealing with land dispossession, but with a surprising twist: Yaxunah happens to be entangled with prestigious sustainable-development projects initiated by some of the most famous chefs in the world. Fisher contends that these sustainable-development initiatives inadvertently bolster the useless-land narrative—a colonial belief that Maya forests are empty wastelands—which has been driving Indigenous land dispossession and environmental injustice for centuries. Rooting in a Useless Land explores how archaeology, practiced within communities, can restore history and strengthen relationships built on contested ground.
Price: $29.95
Pages: 280
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Publication Date:
03 October 2023
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9780520395879
Format: Paperback
"Chelsea Fisher, environmental anthropologist and archaeologist, presents an engaging ethnography of conflict between Western and Indigenous rationality by examining historical and contemporary land use practices in Yucatán, Mexico. . . . Fisher demonstrates how environmental justice and the misgivings it reveals are strongly linked to the racial and anti-Indigenous aspects of the political economy."
Chelsea Fisher is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Carolina.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Rooting in a Useless Land
1 • The Celebrity Chef Lands in Yaxunah
2 • Murderer of the Woodland
3 • Seeds of Permanence
4 • Taproot to Fibrous Root
5 • Lines in the Forest
6 • The Ghost of Chaipa Chi
Appendix A. Time Line of Key Events in the History of the Yaxunah Ejido
Appendix B. Comparison of Homesites Documented at Tzacauil
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Rooting in a Useless Land
1 • The Celebrity Chef Lands in Yaxunah
2 • Murderer of the Woodland
3 • Seeds of Permanence
4 • Taproot to Fibrous Root
5 • Lines in the Forest
6 • The Ghost of Chaipa Chi
Appendix A. Time Line of Key Events in the History of the Yaxunah Ejido
Appendix B. Comparison of Homesites Documented at Tzacauil
Notes
Bibliography
Index