Touching Dirt, Together: On Nurturing in and Beyond the Political Moment

At a recent conference, we (Alison and Julian) had the opportunity to be in conversation with many of the authors whose words you'll read in this book.After each described their contribution, we asked them to think about how their work might speak to the challenges of our political moment.The rapid, flood-the-zone onslaught of executive orders and other policies can feel dizzying, and we don't know what this world will look like by the time you hold this book in your hands.Still, we felt a deep dissonance between the expansive, intersectional stories of more just and sustainable food futures that we offer you here and the amplified cruelty of this administration, cruelty that will make so many of us, in the words of Ruth Wilson Gilmore, disproportionately vulnerable to premature death.Our conversation helped us to see the foundations of the bridges we can build, so we thought it fitting to share.At the conference, Lex Wiley started us off with a response rooted in the practices of historical and con temporary fugitivity that animate their chapter, reminding us that Black and Indigenous peoples have long experienced catastrophe.Ike Leslie echoed this, arguing that the Democrats may have just discovered fascism, but many communities, including the LGBTQ+ farmers they write about, have been subjected to state persecution for a very long time.But woven into these dark provocations was a return to the capacious, hopeful tone you'll find throughout this volume.Charlotte Glennie Roberts invoked the notion of "interstitial spaces," those cracks in the concrete in which new seeds can sprout and grow.Belinda Ramírez called in the concept of "maroonage" to bring in "examples of flourishing beyond the state" that could offer new understandings of "what it means to be human."Ash Touching Dirt, Together: On Nurturing in and Beyond the