Kneeling Before Corn by Mike Anastario
The cultivation of the three sisters (corn, beans, and squash) on subsistence farms in El Salvador is a multispecies, world-making, and ongoing process. Milpa describes a small subsistence corn farm. It is derived from the word milli (‘field’, or a piece of land under active cultivation) in Nahuatl. The milpa is a farming practice that uses perennial, intercropping, and swidden (fire and fallow) techniques that predates the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Kneeling Before Corn focuses on the intimate relations that develop between plants and humans in the milpas of the northern rural region of El Salvador. It explores the ways in which more-than-human intimacies travel away from and return to the milpa through human networks. Collective and multivocal, this work reflects independent lines of investigation and multiple conversations between co-authors—all of whom have lived in El Salvador for extended periods of time. Throughout the six chapters, the co-authors invite readers to consider more-than-human intimacies by rethinking, experimenting with, and developing new ways of documenting, analyzing, and knowing the intimacies that form between humans and the plants that they cultivate, conserve, long for, and eat. This book offers an innovative account of rural El Salvador in the twenty-first century.
Mike Anastario is an assistant professor of health sciences at Northern Arizona University and the author of Parcels: Memories of Salvadoran Migration.
Elena Salamanca is a Salvadoran writer and historian currently pursuing a PhD in history at El Colegio de México. She is author of Tal Vez Monstruos, Landsmoder, and Siempre Vivas.
Elizabeth Hawkins is a San Salvador–based attorney and writer with a background in representing immigrants and asylum seekers.
Elena Salamanca is a Salvadoran writer and historian currently pursuing a PhD in history at El Colegio de México. She is author of Tal Vez Monstruos, Landsmoder, and Siempre Vivas.
Elizabeth Hawkins is a San Salvador–based attorney and writer with a background in representing immigrants and asylum seekers.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780816553372 |
| ISBN 10 | 0816553378 |
| Title | Kneeling Before Corn |
| Author | Mike Anastario |
| Series | Biodiversity In Small Spaces |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | University of Arizona Press |
| Year published | 2024-05-31 |
| Number of pages | 224 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |