Peacewarts: Living Roots 101 - Subsistence as Dignity (Class 14)

We conclude our journey in the Department of Living Roots by reframing subsistence not as a state of poverty, but as the highest form of dignity and freedom. We explore how dependency has been used as a weapon through the get big or get out era and the cultural construction of peasant shame. By examining the resilience of Cuba’s organopónicos and the concept of time sovereignty, we establish that food autonomy is the ultimate form of disarmament, removing the primary levers of coercion and violence from society.

Homework:

Learning Topics: Subsistence as Dignity; The Harvest Table; Dependency as a Weapon; The Earl Butz Era; Cultural Stigmas of Traditional Farming; The Devaluation of the Hand; The Cuban Special Period (organopónicos); Time Sovereignty; Precarity Panic; The Law of Return.