Body Burdens: The Materiality of Work in Rita Wong’s Forage

Walton, Samantha

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-26125-2_9

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Through these thought-provoking questions, Wong makes a subversive gesture, challenging corporate and capitalist evil, and stimulating readers to reflect upon our own consumption behaviours. The subversive transition could be accomplished by way of accumulating and sharing knowledge, forming allyships with other marginalised groups (such as Indigenous Peoples in Wong's text), or breaking dualistic thinking and replacing it with relational understandings (such as breaking the human-nature binary) (Alaimo, 2011;Walton, 2019;Latour, 1996;Zantingh 2013). Ecocritic Stacey Alaimo's 'trans-corporeality,' highlights the entanglement between humans and more-than-humans (23-24) in general, and Walton (2019) points out 'the damage of labour in sickening bodies and degraded environments' (268) epitomized in Wong's poems in particular.…”

Section: He 39mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The subversive transition could be accomplished by way of accumulating and sharing knowledge, forming allyships with other marginalised groups (such as Indigenous Peoples in Wong's text), or breaking dualistic thinking and replacing it with relational understandings (such as breaking the human-nature binary) (Alaimo, 2011;Walton, 2019;Latour, 1996;Zantingh 2013). Ecocritic Stacey Alaimo's 'trans-corporeality,' highlights the entanglement between humans and more-than-humans (23-24) in general, and Walton (2019) points out 'the damage of labour in sickening bodies and degraded environments' (268) epitomized in Wong's poems in particular. Moreover, Bruno Latour's theoretical approach of the ANT (Actor-Network Theory) can also be applied to read 'sort by day, burn by night,' which is to see how human and non-human actors can work together to produce the social (Latour, 1996, 369-381).…”

Section: He 39mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interstitial Spatiality and Subversive Sustainability

2022

JoE

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I apply political ecologist Ryan Galt’s concept of ‘subversive and interstitial food spaces’ (Galt et al., 2014, 133) to read Chinese American writer Ava Chin’s semi-autobiographical memoir, Eating Wildly (2014), and Chinese Canadian writer Rita Wong’s poem collection, forage (2007). Beyond offering a different cultural perspective, I argue that Chin’s and Wong’s urban foraging narratives can be read as transitioning from being interstitial to subversive in the North American context. I see urban spaces where plants are foraged but not normally considered to be cultivatable as interstitial. Analogously, I regard people situated between cultures or on the margins of dominant spaces due to their race or class as being in an interstitial position. Echoing ancient East Asian and specifically Chinese environmental thinking, which is relational, non-linear, and non-dichotomous, Chin’s and Wong’s foraging discourses in their poetic, eth(n)ic, and environmental complexities challenge dominant white foraging narratives and provide alternatives to mainstream environmental thinking. Both urban foraging experiences depicted in Eating Wildly and forage thrive from interstitial spatiality, yet they direct us toward subversive and sustainable foodways that promotes food justice and dismantles rural-urban, local-global, human-nature binaries. I will also highlight how the two authors differ in their foraging poetics and politics.

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Section: He 39mentioning

confidence: 99%