Prickly Pear - A Social History of a Plant in the Eastern Cape William Beinart (OUT OF PRINT NEW)

Prickly Pear - A Social History of a Plant in the EasternCape WilliamBeinart (OUT OF PRINT NEW)

While there are many studies of the global influence ofcrops and plants, this is perhaps the first social history based around a plantin South Africa. Plants are not quite historical actors in their own right, buttheir properties and potential help to shape human history. Plants such asprickly pear tend to be invisible to those who do not use them, or at least onthe peripheries of people's consciousness. This book explains why they were notperipheral to many people in the Eastern Cape and why a wild and sometimesinvasive cactus from Mexico, that found its way around the world over 200 yearsago, remains important to African women in shacks and small towns. The centraltension at the heart of this history concerns different and sometimesconflicting human views of prickly pear. Some accepted or enjoyed its presence;others wished to eradicate it. While commercial livestock farmers initiallyfound the plant enormously valuable, they came to see it as a scourge in theearly twentieth century as it invaded farms and commonages. But forimpoverished rural and small town communities of the Eastern Cape it was agodsend. In some places it still provides a significant income for poor blackfamilies. Debates about prickly pear - and its cultivated spineless variety -have played out in unexpected ways over the last century and more. Somescientists, once eradicationists, now see varieties of spineless cactus asplants for the future, eminently suited to a world beset by climate change andglobal warming. The book also addresses central problems around concepts ofbiodiversity. How do we balance, on the one hand, biodiversity conservationwith, on the other, a recognition that plant transfers - and species transfersmore generally - have been part of dynamic production systems that havehistorically underpinned human civilizations. American plants such as maize,cassava and prickly pear have been used to create incalculable value in Africa.Transferred plants are at the heart of many agricultural systems, as well ashybrid botanical and cultural landscapes, sometimes treasured, that areunlikely to be entirely reversed. Some of these plants displace local species,but are invaluable for local livelihoods. Prickly Pear explores this dilemmaover the long term and suggests that there must be a significant culturaldimension to ideas about biodiversity. The content of Prickly Pear is based onintensive archival research, on interviews conducted in the Eastern Cape by theauthors, as well as on their observations of how people in the area use andconsume the plant.