Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 1, 1995 TAG: 9501040015
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: 4 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY KELLY BLAKE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Wes Jackson writes with urgency in "Becoming Native to This Place" because he recognizes that we are a culture in profound ecological crisis.
This work identifies a major symptom of the illness, the inability of people to earn a living in rural America, and offers a holistic perspective on how we can redefine our relationship to work, community, and the land which supports us. Citing examples of small Midwest towns which have failed to sustain their communities, Jackson questions why in this land of abundance people are displaced from their homes and forced to find economic security elsewhere. With his articulation of the need to "become native," he demonstrates that the pursuit of security contingent to the "extractive economy" is no security at all. He exposes the empty values that have led us to practice irresponsible agriculture, adopt individualistic goals over community ones and surrender to the temptations of "secular materialism."
One of the problematic elements of this book is the question of the intended audience. It seems that Jackson's vision will resonate most deeply with middle-class, college-educated European-Americans who have a longing for rural life. One of the ways he excludes people of other racial backgrounds appears in an analogy he draws between the plight of the American Indians who were forced off their land by European settlers and the descendants of these early settlers who are now becoming displaced themselves.
He says "we" must avoid becoming "the new redskins," suggesting that the offspring of the European-American homesteaders now occupy the same standing as those indigenous to this land. This oversimplifies history and ignores the fact that American Indians as a culture were not only removed from their land but systematically murdered.
In addition, their traditions held the earth in reverence in a way that the European-American pioneering perspective never could. Although I do not believe that Jackson intends to exclude black Americans, Asian-Americans, American Indians or any other group from his vision, one of the limitations of the book is this homogenizing address of "our culture" to refer to middle-class, Euro-American culture.
These criticisms aside, this book offers inspiration to anyone who has felt alienated from a sense of community, disillusioned by the dizzying materialism, or powerless to protect the health of the land they live on. Although the journey will not be easy, as we learn to become native, we will start to base our culture and agriculture on the "ecological realities" of the land.
As in his earlier "New Roots for Agriculture" (based on his work at The Land Institute, which he co-directs with his wife Dana in Salinas, Kansas) Jackson looks to perennial agriculture as the healthiest approach to addressing these realities.
The power of "Becoming Native" lies in how it avoids simplistic indictments about our ecological and economic crisis as well as simplistic solutions. Unlike many who believe that the economic salvation of rural communities lies in jobs, jobs, jobs, Jackson stresses that we need to "arrest consumerism" and ease the burden we place on our life support system:
"Our task is to build fortresses to protect our emerging nativeness. They must be strong enough to hold at bay the powers of consumerism, the powers of greed and envy and pride."
Kelly Blake lives in College Park, Md.
by CNB