Restoring Coast Salish Foods and Landscapes: A More-Than-Human Politics of Place, History and Becoming

Abstract

This dissertation seeks to develop an ethics of place through a study of people-plant relations in Puget Sound Coast Salish territory. The study follows the evolving relationship between Puget Sound Coast Salish people, swədáʔχ, or mountain huckleberry (Vaccinium membranaceum) and the places where it grows, from time immemorial to the present. In doing so, I show how placing a single plant at the center of inquiry illuminates a profoundly deep time co-evolutionary relationship with place of Coast Salish people, as well as ongoing struggles to maintain those relationships within the contemporary social and political-economic milieu.