Spectre in My Seed: Verdant Ghostcolonialisms

Knotweed Frequencies EP. 1

Something strange courses through the groundwater of Jeetze. At a glance, of course it is phosphate, considering that the land was collectivized and industrialized within the East Bloc model for years. Ever-fecund and hopped up on fertilizer, this land is not nature – it is industry.

On a second glance, with a second sight, what we see is that six feet under Jeetze, mixing with the waters, float ghosts and spirits, spectres and apparitions, carrying myriad histories of plant migration through colonialism. And these spectres are breaking out through the soil with their gnarled ghastly hands, flowering as invasive weeds that are threatening to take over.

Radio Kal RJ Promona Sengupta and Dark Ecology specialist Yvonne Wilhelm of knowbotiq offer practical tips and tricks learned from the ghostcolonial lands of Jeetze to callers and listeners who are struggling with ghosts haunting their own gardens and plants. Through two radio episodes that are aired according to the lunar almanac of dark goddess Kali, they gather together important information about post-industrial farming, plant migration and seed sovereignty in the wake of coloniality, the relationship of the supernatural with plants, food practices of the Bengal Famine and the otherworldly claims of psychoactive wild weeds. Deeply influenced by early independent India’s farmer-focused phone-in public programming such as Krishi Samaachaar and Krishi Kothar Ashor, Spectre in My Seed channels the ghostly frequencies of the postcolonial welfare state and land rights-related cultural programming, in the current context of the farmers protests on the borders of Delhi.