Effects Of Colonization On Plant Knowledge
The third Think Fest 2017 event will take place on Sunday August 27 with Losing Ground – the effects of cultural transplantation and colonization on plant knowledge in Bermuda – a presentation by graduate student Saskia Wolsak.
Bermudian Saskia Wolsak is completing her MSc in ethnobotany at the University of British Columbia where she will begin her Phd in September 2017. Her research focus is the relationship between plants and people in Bermuda.
Ms Wolsak said: “We will be discussing the knowledge-power dynamic and the forces which led to the erosion of plant knowledge in Bermuda, with a focus on some of the plants that most influenced Bermuda’s culture and landscape including cedar, palmetto, allspice, and cassava.”
Her presentation will examine how varying types of traditional knowledge and skills underwent a series of adaptations to cope with the social, economic, and environmental pressures of living in a colonial society in a land foreign to those who ended up in Bermuda.
“A study in Bermuda ethnobotany offers many benefits. It provides insight into Bermuda’s history, into the creativity and self-sufficiency of Bermudians, into the current state of our landscape, how it got to be that way and what we can do to change it.”
Organisers have taken the opportunity to use Think Fest as a platform for introducing startups or new business concepts.
Sunday night’s ThinkFest event takes place at Liberty Theatre starting at 6:45 pm with a tasting from Wild Herbs and Plants of Bermuda with delectables such as cactus caviar and prickly pear cheesecake.
The main presentation begins immediately after at 7:10 pm.
The newest event on the Bermuda calendar, Think Fest is an opportunity for the island to celebrate and acknowledge Bermudian academics and independent thinkers, a platform for networking with potential employers, funders, other academics and researchers and a forum for discussing the latest research in a wide variety of fields.
Interested persons and organizations can contact us directly for more information.
Tickets for Think Fest 2017 events can be purchased online at think.bm or at the door. Early bird and group discount tickets are available.
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Category: All, Environment
The erosion of plant knowledge combined with sheer stupidity has reached critical levels in Bermuda, grocery and health stores have just dumped loads of hemp seed, protein and milk because the new Collector of Customs sent out a letter reminding the retailers (and themselves apparently), that hemp products other than fiber are, and always have been, considered to be illegal (despite the fact no one has ever been charged for hemp possession). Without question people complied and now one of the most beneficial plants known to man is further demonized by clueless imbeciles wrongfully and unjustly. This island would have never been discovered, much less colonized, if the cannabis plant wasn’t utilized to make the tons of durable rigging sailing vessels required to make oceanic crossings. So now after the customs and police have been derelict in their duties for decades by allowing these life threatening hemp products to be imported, sold and consumed, they in their infinite wisdom are cracking down on hemp in 2017 when most civilized places are legalizing psychoactive cannabis. Is this type of mental depravity caused by colonialism?