Reframing Farmworker Justice, Decolonizing Land Stewardship

Abstract

The following work is a speculative design project about rethinking the future of our current industrialized agricultural system as a community-based, reciprocal system led by the very people who are currently exploited in current extractivist land paradigms. Indigenous Latinx farmworkers are people who make a living out of their metobolic interchange with nature. They spend their days sustaining the soil as well as their community and food culture because they have a direct interest in defending nature, and they believe in the integrity of human-nature relationships. Latinx farmworkers make sustainable choices on behalf of future generations and non-humans while living and working under conditions of social subordination and dispossession, while fighting the ecological contradictions of capitalism. While indigenous Latinx farmworkers suffer from exploitation, they also uphold stories of resilience and resistance. Immigrants from Mexico, many carry traditional ecological knowledge of tending to the land with them as well as ways of collective land ownership. This thesis explores their methods of placemaking and grassroots organizing in the face of hegemonic structures. This project is heavily rooted in history, but most importantly, it builds on the work of local activists and grassroots organizations who are on the ground advocating for farmworker justice. This thesis is a call to action to the field of landscape architecture to rethink the space we occupy within collective liberation. The issues surrounding farmworkers are at the nexus of land, health, ecology, justice, and policy, which is where landscape architecture also finds itself. There are groups of revolutionaries in the margins that have already begun to imagine an alternative future for agricultural spaces. They are leading efforts for full farmworker autonomy. While addressing an agricultural system that is rooted in structural racism, I explore what this system would look like if we leveraged the knowledge of those who tend to agricultural land and if we considered how landscape architectural tools can make a contribution. These tools entail telling stories, shaping spaces, and thinking across multiple scales. This thesis was explored through the use of decolonizing and feminist methodologies. I applied methods of historical analysis, community outreach, mapping, interviews, and contemporary archival research to learn from the perspectives of different disciplines, amplify the voices of Latinx farmworkers and activists, and leverage traditional ecological knowledge from Latinx farmers. These methods are key to preserving biodiversity and protecting agroecosystems.