We take politics that exclusively valorize the local in the guise of subverting currents of global abstraction, to be insufficient. To secede from or disavow capitalist machinery will not make it disappear. Likewise, suggestions to pull the lever on the emergency brake of embedded velocities, the call to slow down and scale back, is a possibility available only to the few–a violent particularity of exclusivity–ultimately entailing catastrophe for the many. Refusing to think beyond the microcommunity, to foster connections between fractured insurgencies, to consider how emancipatory tactics can be scaled up for universal implementation, is to remain satisfied with temporary and defensive gestures.
- Laboria Cuboniks (pseud.), The Xenofeminist Manifesto (2018)
Ecosystems are open.
So-called “closed ecological systems” are typically artificial and, though they have their uses, are contingent and can be resource-intensive. Their internal coherence depends on various externalities or energy exchanges. It takes a lot of glass and metal to build a greenhouse in the desert.
Likewise, our planetary ecosphere operates largely as a closed system, as far as matter goes. Traces of hydrogen and helium, stray space rocks, and bored rich dudes on hunks of metal—not much else comes or goes. Nonetheless, we depend for life (and for our magnetopause) on a constant influx of sunlight as well as the ongoing equilibrium of gravitational fields, electromagnetic currents, and other forces.
Within the ecosphere, at the level of particular habitats and species, instances of isolation due to myriad ecological barriers can have wonderfully strange effects on habitats and species. Consider the Galapagos, etc. But fragmentation cumulatively tends to reduce biodiversity and promote… extinction.
For such reasons, I find the idea of “closed-loop” systems— whether material (e.g., municipal waste streams), culinary (e.g., the 5+ jars of vinegars, juices, and pastes clogging the back of my fridge), or symbolic (e.g., bioregional subcultures)—to be less helpful, less provocative than attention to the back loop of “release and reorganization” that follow processes of growth and stability. This is the flipside of integration and expansion, often invisible (or ignored), and typically involving collapse followed by renewal.
Even when we think a system or loop is closed, we should expect that something escapes our notice. So tell me about the oblique, the residual, or the unintended consequences. What was destroyed to build this home? What could this structure become if it were “changed, changed utterly”?
Likewise, let’s understand locality and regionality not under the aegis of “earthrise” and “the overview effect” but with a pinch of “breaking-off,” of alienation even. Places are strange.
Strange Pesto
I made several variations of this over the summer, some crumbly with lots of seeds and others thinner like a chimichurri. Either way, the sumac makes a nice regional substitution for the sour brightness of lemon. Sumac is floral and peppery, too, making it my new favorite pesto addition; though at what point does a pesto cease to be a pesto, and need a new name?
Now that garlic scapes are long gone here in Massachusetts, and sumac is on its way out, too, I’ll have to resort to kale, arugula, and/or the last of the herbs in my small community garden plot, paired with store-bought garlic bulbs or the dried grinders from Backyard Garlic.
Ingredients
a couple handfuls of garlic scapes
a large spoonful of sumac
a few spoonfuls of pumpkin seeds
about a quarter cup of nice sunflower or squash-seed oil
sea salt, to taste
optional: a spoonful of light miso or two of nutritional yeast; a pinch of chili flakes
Instructions
If necessary, trim any tough/woody parts of the scapes or shave them with a peeler. Add everything to a food processor or mini-chopper (which is what I have). If you use a mini-chopper, blend it relatively hard to avoid excessive scape strings or seed chunks. I kept my leftovers in a little jar.