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/lp/duke-university-press/roots-rs8gqJlmG1
- Copyright
- © 2021 Hannah Pitt
- ISSN
- 2201-1919
- eISSN
- 2201-1919
- DOI
- 10.1215/22011919-9320255
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/environmental-humanities/article-pdf/13/2/470/1207527/470pitt.pdf by DEEPDYVE INC user on 19 April 2022 LIVING LEXICON FOR T HE EN VIRONME N T A L H UMA N IT IE S HANNAH PITT Cardiff University, UK “Zipping up my boots, going back to my roots To the place of my birth, back down to earth” amont Dozier’s song celebrating being “homeward bound” toward Yoruba ancestry, L was released the same year Alex Haley’s Roots aired on TV, another story tracing Afri- can American heritage. Metaphors of human rootedness reach way beyond and before 1977 USA, often being used to visualize diaspora. Roots are perhaps the most familiar way to convey belonging—human connections to place. bell hooks describes regaining connection to Black history and community by returning to her Kentucky roots because for her, just as roots feed plants, place nourishes people. Histories and survival of peo- ples and plants are so closely intertwined, it is perhaps not surprising that people often understand themselves through botanic metaphors. Geographers, anthropologists, and others have spent many words interrogating place-people connections, but metaphors of roots and territory are perhaps so com- monsense they pass under-interrogated. I turn attention to the plant side of these metaphors because
Journal
Environmental Humanities – Duke University Press
Published: Nov 1, 2021