Published Research Articles by Melissa Johnson
Anthropology Now, 2024
Opening sentence: This is the story of Lucy Partridge, an enslaved Black woman living on the Mosq... more Opening sentence: This is the story of Lucy Partridge, an enslaved Black woman living on the Mosquito Shore in the late 1700s who appears a surprising 40 times in archival records.
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2019
In rural Belize, Afro-Caribbean people have been generating economies and ecologies that simultan... more In rural Belize, Afro-Caribbean people have been generating economies and ecologies that simultaneously articulate with and are other than the global capitalism that initially brought enslaved West Africans and free Northern Europeans to the shores of Central America in the 1700s. What it is to be Belizean Creole initially emerged in the crucible of forest slavery and racial capitalism, but flourished in the generation of reciprocal economies and relational entanglement with the more than human, as blackness associated with freedom in the "bush." Living in lands that did not interest Belize's 19th century forestocracy, and that were not desirable for industrial agriculture, rural Creole people created commons for hunting, fishing, and other more than human engagement. The sense of being rural Creole develops from these entanglements and reciprocal relations that assemble with blackness and brownness in ways that are not fully contained within global white supremacist logics. This basis for a rural Creole identity has persisted even as rural Creole people engage today with the global capitalist projects of conservation and tourism, and as they live in transnational diaspora. In these ways, rural Creole people expand human being beyond the over-represented form of Man, as Sylvia Wynter has described the problem of the coloniality of "the human," into a genre of "human being in common." This expansion illustrates how commoning creates possibilities for blackness and brownness to thrive. Keywords Belize, more than human, blackness, commoning In the Afro-Caribbean, or Creole, communities of Belize, babies are taught from a very young age that being greedy or selfish is not socially acceptable; sharing and an ethic of generosity are organizing values of rural Creole culture. A baby will be offered a treat-a piece of mango, or a piece of candy or cake; and then someone will ask the
Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2018
Race and gender intertwine with ecotourism in Belize's northern rural Creole villages, communitie... more Race and gender intertwine with ecotourism in Belize's northern rural Creole villages, communities that are home to protected areas renowned for birds and other wildlife. Racialising and gendering assemblages found here emerge out of Belize's long history of forest-based slavery economies. From the early days of sport fishing and jaguar hunting in the 1950s through to contemporary bird-and wildlife-watching, tourism has joined these socio-natural formations. Intersectional feminist political ecology and assemblage theory provide an analytical frame that reveals how ecotourism serves to re-entrench gendered and racialised inequality, yet in cases where the ecotourism industry is small-scale and locally owned, possibilities for challenging those hierarchies also arise.
IN BELIZE, a small Central American nation on the Caribbean coast, different "racial" groups hist... more IN BELIZE, a small Central American nation on the Caribbean coast, different "racial" groups historically have been, and sometimes still are, constructed as better suited to some forms of labor-in-nature than others. The process of racial construction intensified in the nineteenth century, when Belize was a British colony and when slavery and an increasingly unequal distribution of land became the chief characteristics of this swampy colonial backwater. The racial discourse of colonial officers and apologists presumed particular relationships to the natural environment for each racial group. Belizean "Creoles" (people of mixed African and European descent) were cast as physiologically excellent wood- cutters, but as averse to agriculture, the Maya as indolent and wasteful farmers, the Garifuna as consummate fishermen. Racially based socioecological ascriptions simultaneously became key markers of racial identity and a central component of the colonial apparatus for controlling who was able to benefit from the use and transformation of natural resources. While these racial-ecological categories were a dimension of colonial control, colonial subjects in Belize created relationships to the land that both built upon and challenged colonial racial constructions. Each ethnic group in Belize, both historically and currently, is associated with particular places within the country. Colonial racial discourse has been a critical part of the mutual constitution of place and identity for the different peoples who live in Belize, as well as a critical part of the ways in which each of the ethnic groups in Belize understand and interrelate with the natural environment
In this article, I explore the relationship between colonial racial ideologies and Belize’s natur... more In this article, I explore the relationship between colonial racial ideologies and Belize’s natural landscape past and present. The Creole, Garifuna, Maya and Mestizo groups are each associated with different parts of Belize, and with different ways of living in the environment in each of those locations. Dominant racial ideologies with origins in the 18th and 19th C suggest that each group is best suited to one particular landscape and economic activity: the Creole are either urban dwellers or backwoodsmen in the swampy bits of central Belize; the Garifuna mobile fishermen in small coastal villages in Southern Belize; the Maya subsistence farm in out of the way corners in the most remote parts of Southern Belize, and the Mestizo are cane farmers in the north (Wilk & Chapin 1989; Bolland, 1977; Shoman 1994). In this article, I argue that specific ideas about relationships to the natural environment have been a part of the racial formation of Creole and Garifuna identities. Furthermore, these racial formations have also literally shaped the environment, by limiting what was possible for certain groups to do in certain places, and therefore encouraging particular patterns of landscape use in the colony
How can a single landscape, a shantytown on the US–Mexico border, symbolize environmental devast... more How can a single landscape, a shantytown on the US–Mexico border, symbolize environmental devastation for some and progress and ‘the good life’ for others? Our analysis of this landscape and the people who are a part of it highlights the complexities of the environmental justice movement in the current era of neo-liberal economic policies. Although the colonia that we studied, Derechos Humanos, is located on top of an abandoned landfill near an open sewage canal, living here represents a step forward for many residents. However, to many US environmentalists, this landscape represents a toxic wasteland and the people living here are simply victims of border industrialization. Contributing to critical environmental justice studies, our analysis of Derechos Humanos highlights the injustices of the global political economy, creative responses to these forces by individuals most adversely affected by them, and the potential limitations of conventional framings of environmental justice and mainstream Northern environmentalism
In this article, I analyze the implementation and management of Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary i... more In this article, I analyze the implementation and management of Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary in rural Creole (Afro-Caribbean) Belize as a process of creolization. Encounters between different villagers, Belizean and international conservationists, and government officials in creating and running the sanctuary generated both synthesis and disjuncture in the conservation policy and practice that emerged. Differently positioned actors shifted their claims depending on context, reflecting the ambivalence that characterizes rural Creole culture, to further their interests as they created conservation in Belize. I use the metaphor of creolization to capture the ambivalence of subjects as they adopt varying and, sometimes, contradictory positions in fields of uneven relations of power. The metaphor shows how temporary syntheses emerge out of the encounters between these subjects. My analysis thus reveals how “local” peoples, often imagined as pawns in global processes, can be creative agents in the generation of global forms [Keywords: Creolization, globalization, conservation, Belize, Caribbean, environment
Other Publications by Melissa Johnson
Even before anthropology was consolidated as an academic discipline, understanding the relationsh... more Even before anthropology was consolidated as an academic discipline, understanding the relationship between human societies and the natural environments in which they find themselves was a central concern. Scholarship on the environment has encouraged collaboration among the different sub-disciplines of anthropology, put anthropology in conversation with other disciplines, and has pushed the boundaries of anthropology as a discipline and of the social theory anthropologists employ. This essay explores the range of environmental scholarship by anthropologists since the 1980s, noting especially the ways in which that work has contributed to development and change within the discipline more broadly.
Dissertation by Melissa Johnson
In Crooked Tree the fledgling ecotourism industry is entirely locally managed but it promises no... more In Crooked Tree the fledgling ecotourism industry is entirely locally managed but it promises no household a full income. The wildlife sanctuary is home to growing numbers of Jabiru storks, roseate spoonbills and other spectacular waterfowl, but appears to be suffering declining fish and game populations. A number of community members are involved in the ecotourism industry and some are involved with sanctuary in a variety of ways -- some supportive, some antagonistic. The glossy reports of ecotourism as an ideal means of sustainable development, even when done on a small scale, even when locally organized and with lots of local involvement, belie a much more complex and uncertain reality. Empty bed and breakfasts and four-hundred-pound fish hauls with gill nets occur in the same week that a local tour guide makes twice the average monthly wage and seven ten-year-old children decide that they are no longer going to hunt parrots and other birds with slingshots, because he thought the birds “should be protected.” Villagers have complex ideas and opinions about what should and could be happening in this village, and the future of the sanctuary, the ecotourism industry, and the village in general, is opaque.
Through a combination of ethnographic and historical analysis this dissertation explores how people have lived in and with this land since the village was settled, perhaps as long as 300 years ago, how they think about this “place” and their role in it, and how these ideas relate to what people do and have done in this place. Out of the ensuing pages emerges a picture of the complexities surrounding conservation and development in Belize, a picture which has important ramifications for understanding other areas in the world in which various projects for sustainable development have been suggested and implemented. My ultimate goal is that these words I have written have relevance in the real world; I hope policy makers, conservationists, and rural people, who are experiencing the activities of the former two, will make use of the stories I tell.
Books--Becoming Creole: Nature and Race in Belize by Melissa Johnson
Papers by Melissa Johnson
Anthropological Quarterly, 2015
Environmental History, 2003
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2021
In rural Belize, Afro-Caribbean people have been generating economies and ecologies that simultan... more In rural Belize, Afro-Caribbean people have been generating economies and ecologies that simultaneously articulate with and are other than the global capitalism that initially brought enslaved West Africans and free Northern Europeans to the shores of Central America in the 1700s. What it is to be Belizean Creole initially emerged in the crucible of forest slavery and racial capitalism, but flourished in the generation of reciprocal economies and relational entanglement with the more than human, as blackness associated with freedom in the "bush." Living in lands that did not interest Belize's 19th century forestocracy, and that were not desirable for industrial agriculture, rural Creole people created commons for hunting, fishing, and other more than human engagement. The sense of being rural Creole develops from these entanglements and reciprocal relations that assemble with blackness and brownness in ways that are not fully contained within global white supremacist l...
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Published Research Articles by Melissa Johnson
Other Publications by Melissa Johnson
Dissertation by Melissa Johnson
Through a combination of ethnographic and historical analysis this dissertation explores how people have lived in and with this land since the village was settled, perhaps as long as 300 years ago, how they think about this “place” and their role in it, and how these ideas relate to what people do and have done in this place. Out of the ensuing pages emerges a picture of the complexities surrounding conservation and development in Belize, a picture which has important ramifications for understanding other areas in the world in which various projects for sustainable development have been suggested and implemented. My ultimate goal is that these words I have written have relevance in the real world; I hope policy makers, conservationists, and rural people, who are experiencing the activities of the former two, will make use of the stories I tell.
Books--Becoming Creole: Nature and Race in Belize by Melissa Johnson
Papers by Melissa Johnson
Through a combination of ethnographic and historical analysis this dissertation explores how people have lived in and with this land since the village was settled, perhaps as long as 300 years ago, how they think about this “place” and their role in it, and how these ideas relate to what people do and have done in this place. Out of the ensuing pages emerges a picture of the complexities surrounding conservation and development in Belize, a picture which has important ramifications for understanding other areas in the world in which various projects for sustainable development have been suggested and implemented. My ultimate goal is that these words I have written have relevance in the real world; I hope policy makers, conservationists, and rural people, who are experiencing the activities of the former two, will make use of the stories I tell.