Entangled Genealogies: Mulberries, Production of Racial Categories, and Land Development in Central Virginia

Abstract

This article traces the history of white mulberry (Morus alba) alongside the histories of Charlottesville, Virginia and the author’s genealogy as a mixed-European and Asian-descended American, to explore the situated and connected histories between plants, land and humans. This approach allows the re-mixing of various kinds of knowledge (designerly, personal, archival, scholarly) available to the author, and explores the ways in which attention to place, plant and people can reveal the entanglements between living actors and mega-systems of racial capitalism, and point toward further avenues for inquiry for those seeking to build worlds beyond capitalism