Weaving worlds: Wetlands and multispecies politics of plants
Associate Professor Emily O’Gorman, Macquarie University, Australia
Speaking at the Geography Department Colloquium on March 16th, 2023 at 4pm. Condon 106.
Abstract below.
Wetlands in Australia have been important sites of political engagement and activism for many Aboriginal groups, who seek to care for Country, and strengthen their rights and roles in the management of water and particular sites. This paper engages with the contemporary weaving practices of three Aboriginal women at different wetland sites as they use this practice to enact ongoing connections to Country, a term used by Aboriginal people to refer to the nourishing interconnections between multiple beings. It particularly develops in conversation with Danielle Carney Flakelar, a Wailwan woman who continues to care for the Macquarie Marshes in a range of direct and indirect ways. Weaving draws us into multiple temporalities and particular multispecies relationships, involving plants and people, as well as many others. By focusing on weaving this paper shows that the concerns of Wailwan and other Aboriginal groups, concerns which may seem disparate to others, are in fact intimately connected. It aims to provide a more complex, richly woven, understanding of what is at stake in the lack of water in wetlands. Weaving interconnects generations and Country, water politics, and access to wetlands. In this way, this paper engages with the plants used for weaving as agents of and for postcolonial and multispecies politics.