2015/03/22 by Christine Biermann, Biermann, Christine
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Social Sciences · #Animal Disease Management and Epidemiology #Geographies of human-animal interactions #Plant and Fungal Interactions Research #axes of difference #description #multiple realities #poststructural epistemology #research design chestnut #scholarship #socioecology
paper · doi:10.14288/acme.v13i4.1042
openalex publication_date 2015/03/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
This article presents a research design that examines how the production of a not-quite-American chestnut articulates across multiple axes of difference. The chestnut was rendered virtually extinct by an invasive blight in the early 1900s, but plant breeders have now produced blight-resistant trees that are 15/16 ‘American’ and 1/16 ‘Chinese.’ Using a series of moments across space-time, I suggest a way to study the species as a gathering together of multiple realities rather than a fixed and coherent entity. More broadly, this article advocates for research strategies that address the messy relations within and between species without recourse to totalizing explanations or mere description. I also contend that critical geographers emphasizing multiple socioecological realities have a responsibility to explore the ontological politics of these realities and to consider what types of worlds our own scholarship helps to enact.