Re-thinking the metaphor of ‘roots’ through Turkish-Dutch gardeners’ imaginings of home

Abstract (English)

This paper calls into question the assumptions underpinning the metaphor of ‘roots’ through examining Turkish-Dutch allotment gardeners’ home-making practices in connection with their rural heritage. By focusing on the gardeners’ engagements with rooted plants, it approaches roots literally to answer the following question: How might the sedentary perspective on home and heritage change if we start perceiving roots as mobile? In other words, what can we learn from plant roots to enrich our understanding of rootedness in general? Drawing on ethnographic observations, I demonstrate the ways in which certain plants come to signify provincial attachments and identities in the allotments, which are always shifting and relational. These relationships constitute a dynamic expression and performance of the gardeners’ rural heritage, as opposed to denoting a rigid sense of rootedness within the bounds of the nation-state (Malkki 1992). Furthermore, plants have their own needs for mobility as they are often shifted around until they find a place where they can thrive; they will perish if left on soil that is not nurturing. What the experiences of my informants illustrate is that despite its criticisms for essentialising identities, the metaphor of roots remains a powerful imagery in understanding multiple belongings, as long as they are conceptualised as mobile connections to places that are actively forged through relationships of care. Explored through the lens of roots, both home and heritage emerge as dynamic practices that are actively made and remade in the allotment gardens.