2024 Theses Master's

Re-rooting Orality: On Plant Oral Histories In Paredones, Michoacan, Mexico

Shane, Clarissa

The oral transmission of plant knowledge particularly their medicinal usages enriches relations to the land. How can plants/nonhuman be recognized for their ‘personhood’? Respect for the nonhuman is demonstrated by the customary use of plants as medicine, cooking, and in ritual by Paredones residents.

By caring and protecting the nonhuman in Paredones, the nonhuman is cared for and the human can partake in a network of reciprocity where humans are gifted through nonhuman nourishment. The oral histories are situated within the larger frameworks such as migration in order to address the impacts of colonialism, capitalism, and neoliberalism on traditional ways of living and the environmental injustices that come with those systems.