Jacaranda Trees, Place and Affect: An Analysis of Australian Newspaper Articles, 1900–2023

Abstract

The jacaranda tree, native to South and Central America and the West Indies, yet planted ornamentally on all continents (except Antarctica), inspires colonial imaginaries and outpourings of poetic verse, exerting influence as a placemaker. One of the almost fifty jacaranda species, Jacaranda mimosifolia, commonly called ‘blue jacaranda’, is native to the Andes mountains of Bolivia and Argentina, though planted in Australia starting in 1865. With purple-ish mauve, trumpet-shaped blossoms that can last weeks to two months in springtime, jacaranda trees enact forms of vegetal (tree) influence on humans while also being objectified in colonial efforts to beautify and civilise; these complex relations exist in fields of place-making and unmaking processes. This paper tracks the discourses related to this jacaranda-blooming cyclical event in Australian newspapers across 123 years (1900–2023), exploring complex multi-directional relationships that build place across vegetal affective fields and remake place in settler colonial processes. Contributing to environmental humanities’ discussions of place, power, affect and vegetal influence in Critical Plant Studies, this paper uncovers how placemaking is a multispecies and affective process, and how the vegetal is a powerful force that is also objectified in settler discourses and processes of unmaking. Journalism has prominent placemaking roles as well, transforming spaces discursively into places of meaning with social and cultural constructions; placemaking occurs both in human-plant relations and through the journalistic medium.