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As rooibos tea's economic value has risen, its status has gone from a wild plant to a culturally significant product against which some residents of the South African rooibos‐growing region measure their sense of belonging and indigeneity. I examine how “coloured” residents negotiated the region's fraught history of cultural indigeneity as well as its celebratory relation to ecological indigeneity. With the majority of land still in white South Africans’ hands and more than a quarter of the population without work, indigenous claims have taken on increasing importance as political rallying points and means of economic survival. Although “coloured” people, members of a South African racial category denied nativity to any place, could potentially benefit from claims of indigeneity, many rejected a temporally and spatially incarcerating idea of cultural indigeneity. Instead, they found economic possibilities in and metonymic identification with an indigenous plant. [race, indigeneity, South Africa, multispecies, agriculture, commodity]

Amid global concerns about climate change, scientists suggest that South African rooibos tea's indigenous ecosystem may be shifting southward. By 2011, rooibos farmers were beginning to worry that the plant was abandoning its "proper" home and undermining both their livelihoods and their rooted sense of belonging.Using the framework of plant and human mobility to explore the impact of environmental changes on one farming community, I investigate how climate change unsettles not only livelihoods but also social cosmologies. If rooibos's growing range shifts, how will it affect the ways that farmers understand and claim their heritage in connection to this indigenous plant? How does the uprooting of a plant's indigeneity influence ideas about cultural indigeneity as rooted in place? What role can anthropology play in theorizing ecological mobility? In addressing these questions, I contend that understanding the effects of climate change also involves destabilizing the idea of place. By focusing on plant mobility, I articulate a theory of geographical precarity: I imply that people's uncertain claims to belonging in place merged with uncertainty of the rootedness of place itself. I conclude by examining industry efforts to delineate and control where rooibos could "legally" grow through the creation of geographical indications. [climate change, indigeneity, South Africa, precarity, place] RESUMEN En medio de las preocupaciones globales sobre el cambio climático, los científicos sugieren que el ecosistema indígena del té rojo de SurÁfrica se puede estar desplazando hacia el sur. Hacia el 2011, los cultivadores de té rojo se empezaron a preocupar de que la planta estaba abandonando su "propia" casa y socavando tanto su fuente de sustento como su enraizado sentido de pertenencia. Utilizando el marco de movilidad de plantas y animales, exploro el impacto de cambios ambientales en una comunidad agrícola; investigo cómo el cambio climático altera no solamente la fuente de sustento sino también las cosmologías sociales. Si el rango para el cultivo de té rojo cambia, ¿cómo afectará la manera en que los agricultores entienden y afirman su herencia cultural en conexión con esta planta indígena? ¿Cómo el arrancar de raíz la indigenidad de una planta influencia ideas sobre la indigenidad cultural enraizada en un lugar? ¿Qué papel puede la antropología jugar en teorizar la movilidad ecológica? Abordando estas preguntas, argumento que entender los efectos del cambio climático también envuelve desestabilizar la idea de lugar. Al enfocar la movilidad de plantas, articulo una teoría de la precariedad geográfica. Implico que las reclamaciones inciertas sobre pertenencia a un lugar se combinaron con la incertidumbre del enraizamiento de lugar en sí mismo. Concluyo examinando los esfuerzos de la industria en delinear y controlar dónde el té rojo puede "legalmente" crecer a través de la creación de Indicaciones Geográficas. [cambio climático, indigenidad, SurÁfrica, precariedad, lugar]