Project Mission

CONCEPT. The goal of this project is to examine several specific geopolitical situations, both current and historical, where people’s relationships with the botanical world – in terms of agricultural economies, religious mythologies surrounding plants, et al. – affect larger socio-political phenomena. Wars and atrocities are committed over territorial concerns based on precious metals and oil, but historically and more prevalently in human history, it has been the basic need for food and the croplands upon which to grow them that has been the root cause of strife.

ACTION. In this project, I will be examining the Jewish National Fund’s responsibility and involvement in the aggravation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; agricultural economies and upheaval in through the Soviet and Post-Soviet eras in the Former Soviet Union (FSU); and others, while doing service at the Lower Merion Conservancy in Gladwyne, PA, and assisting at Friends’ Central with leaf scans for Economic Botany and gardening and terraforming with Doug Ross behind the FCS Middle School. I will be taking several day trips: to the Penn Museum of Athropology and Archaeology, the UN and National Museum of Natural History in New York City, George Nakashima’s workshop in Doylestown, the Morris Arboretum, and others, on weekdays and weekends. Films, both cinema and documentary, as well as fiction and non-fiction readings will both be a part of the project.

HISTORY. The original focus of this project at its outset was to research historical and current international relations at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (1528 Walnut St, Philadelphia). I worked there for a week and a half before continuing my research independently at FCS, having realized that the imposition of menial tasks from my handlers at FPRI were a detriment to my independent research. I spent a large amount of time from May 7th to the middle of this week delineating the restructured project.