Chronotopes, International Law, and the Botanic Gardensof Empire and Colony
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Chronotopes, International Law, and the Botanic Gardensof Empire and Colony
German Yearbook of International Law, Online First : pp. 1–24
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Prof. Dr. Jessie Hohmann, University of Technology of Sydney, Faculty of Law PO Box 123, Broadway 2007 Sydney, Australia
- Professor for Law at the University of Technology of Sydney
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Abstract
Abstract: The objectification and control of plants and vegetal life has been a key aspect of the production of the modern international legal order. In this article, I explore one facet of this interrelationship, arguing that in the United Kingdom and Australia, botanic gardens are used to support and justify the legitimacy and legality of empire and the colonial project through specific chronotopes. These chronotopes harness and replicate the linear, progressive time and the global reach of international law, in order to craft a narrative of that spatiotemporality as natural and inevitable. Taking up the concept of the chronotope from the work of literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, I explore this thesis through two examples across three botanic gardens. The first is the United Kingdom’s bid to have the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew enshrined on the UNESCO World Heritage List as an artefact of Britain’s imperial domination of plants, people, and places. The second considers the specific spatiotemporal relationship of two of Sydney’s botanic gardens and the role of that chronotope in supporting the foundation myth of Australia as a nation State. In the concluding section, I contrast these chronotopes with vegetal spatiotemporality, a chronotope that offers a contrast to the linear, progressive view of time in the previous examples, and opens up potential paths to resist and contest it.
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jessie Hohmann\nChronotopes, International Law, and the Botanic Gardens of Empire and Colony | 1 | ||
| I. International Law’s World Making and the Botanic Gardens of Empire and Colony | 1 | ||
| II. The Inseparability of Time and Space: Bakhtin’s Chronotopes | 5 | ||
| III. Botanic Gardens, International Law, and Chronotopes of Imperial Progress and Colonial Foundation | 7 | ||
| A. Memorialising the ‘Success and Status of the Empire’: Inverting the Chronotope of World Heritage in Kew Gardens’ World Heritage Listing | 8 | ||
| B. Mythic Chronotopes in Sydney’s Botanic Gardens | 13 | ||
| IV. Conclusions: Resistant Vegetal Chronotopes | 20 |