Spurned Growths

Bibliographic Data

ID3914256
AuthorsHannah Rachel Cole (University of California, Santa Cruz, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume16
Issue3
Pages554-570
Publication date2024-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Humanities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2201-1919 • E-ISSN: 2201-1919
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/22011919-11327372
OpenAlexW4404708892
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited25

The biologist Merlin Sheldrake has named the tendency for humans to privilege plants to the exclusion of fungi "plant-centrism." Connecting Sheldrake's claim to critiques of the Caribbean plantation system, this article argues that plant-centrism is inherent in plantation logic. While cash crops depend on fungal processes and networks, fungi are rarely acknowledged except where they lead to disease. They constitute a subterranean underside to plant production and, by extension, the plantation system. Working against plant-centrism, this article examines representations of fungi in Alejo Carpentier's The Kingdom of This World. Rather than overdetermining fungi as signs of decline, disease, and corruption, the article argues that the novel's decomposers materialize antiplantation sentiment even as they underlie plantation grounds. Ultimately it suggests using fungi to reassess the novel's scenes of ruination, recognizing that decomposition is a condition of possibility for new growth

Political science · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Water Governance and Infrastructure

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