BellingenNSWGrass of empire - Mowing the lawn: the colonial ghosts haunting our suburban ritual
"The lawn – the “telltale patchwork quilt of European settlement” – arrived in this country with the British. The ones established over here were intended to mimic and to elicit an emotional connection with the ones left behind."
"Like the introduction of other exotic flora and fauna, pastoral farming and parliamentary government, the laying down of the lawn was one of the ways in which colonisation marked this land."
"Perhaps not at the very beginning, when most new arrivals would have been busy felling trees, draining wetlands and burning bush. But once the footholds had been established and life had become a little less precarious, it was time to take up the challenge of civilising the new colonial spaces by reproducing the landscapes of Home. Time to impose order upon chaos and inscribe empire on the land. Time to cultivate the lawn."
"This is also the lexicon used by those who colonise to characterise what must be done to those who have been colonised. Indigenous people need to be kept in their place just as much as indigenous flora does, and for much the same reason: give them half a chance and they’ll get away on you."
"Of the knowledge that colonisation is not just about the movement of people and power across time and space. Ideas, too, are instruments of empire. As is grass and the land it grows on." >>
https://theconversation.com/mowing-the-lawn-the-colonial-ghosts-haunting-our-suburban-ritual-283270
#lawn #mowing #suburbia #SettlerSociety #ExoticGrass #FossilFuel #pollution #NoisePollution #colonisation #TheColonialProject #British #empire #ColonistGrass #flora #extinction
Image: The “telltale patchwork quilt of European settlement” at the Mid North Coast of NSW. The palms were in the way of the machinery and had to go. The leaves will soon be blown onto the road/drain by a leaf blower.
