<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Part of the raw material accumulation for the medicinal plant industry in Romania is reliant on gathering plants from the so-called spontaneous flora. The imagery of medicinal plants played upon by medicinal plant product manufacturers is often abundant in visions of either wilderness or traditional peasant landscapes such as pastures. This article aims to present instead two different spaces where medicinal plants come from: wild pansy from within an oil seed rape cultivation, and elderflowers and nettles from the ruins of a former socialist orchard. These spaces of spontaneous flora highlight the process of capital’s appropriation or salvage of the ‘free’ reproductive labour (spontaneous growth) of weeds often at odds and against other capitalist processes. Moreover, salvaging or scrounging is done through the cheap labour of a family whose livelihood depends on work both inside and outside of this capitalist process. These places, therefore, highlight the tension between the spontaneous flora and scroungers on the ground and Nature with its ancestral peasants on the supermarket and nature shop shelves.</p></abstract>

Part of the raw material accumulation for the medicinal plant industry in Romania is reliant on gathering plants from the so-called spontaneous flora. The imagery of medicinal plants played upon by medicinal plant product manufacturers is often abundant in visions of either wilderness or traditional peasant landscapes such as pastures. This article aims to present instead two different spaces where medicinal plants come from: wild pansy from within an oil seed rape cultivation, and elderflowers and nettles from the ruins of a former socialist orchard. These spaces of spontaneous flora highlight the process of capital’s appropriation or salvage of the ‘free’ reproductive labour (spontaneous growth) of weeds often at odds and against other capitalist processes. Moreover, salvaging or scrounging is done through the cheap labour of a family whose livelihood depends on work both inside and outside of this capitalist process. These places, therefore, highlight the tension between the spontaneous flora and scroungers on the ground and Nature with its ancestral peasants on the supermarket and nature shop shelves.

Unwrapping the Spontaneous Flora: On the Appropriation of Weed Labour

Centre for the Study of Modernity and the Rural World

Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Sociologia

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Unwrapping the Spontaneous Flora: On the Appropriation of Weed Labour"}

Part of the raw material accumulation for the medicinal plant industry in Romania is reliant on gathering plants from the so-called spontaneous flora. The...

Unwrapping the Spontaneous Flora: On the Appropriation of Weed Labour

Published Online: Aug 20, 2018

Page range: 55 - 72

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/subbs-2018-0004

Keywords
spontaneous flora, capital accumulation, salvage, weed labour, medicinal plant industry

© 2018 Ágota Ábrán, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Unwrapping the Spontaneous Flora: On the Appropriation of Weed Labour

Published Online: Aug 20, 2018

Page range: 55 - 72

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/subbs-2018-0004

Keywordsspontaneous flora, capital accumulation, salvage, weed labour, medicinal plant industry

© 2018 Ágota Ábrán, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
spontaneous flora, capital accumulation, salvage, weed labour, medicinal plant industry