Terra plena

Abstract
In this chapter, I contribute toward decolonial understandings of indigenous knowledge and environmental politics by developing a perspective I term, ‘terra plena’. Through ‘terra plena’ I situate and critique the practices and claims of emerging transnational agricultural movements [TAMs]. ‘Terra plena’ is the Latin term for an ‘earth full of. . .’ and responds to the colonial logic of terra nullius [empty land] whereby the designation of land empty or ‘wilderness’ legitimises its conversion into private property as the basis for capital accumulation. I use this notion to flesh out the knowledge politics mobilised by campesino-a-campesino [farmer-to-farmer] networks and land-based permaculture collectives in El Salvador, before asking questions of the visual iconography employed by emerging TAMs to connect movements in diverse rural (and urban) contexts – especially the myths and imagery of Madre Tierra [Mother Nature]. The way that Madre Tierra amalgamates diverse cosmologies and experiences of colonialism seems to gender and essentialise ‘nature’ in troubling ways; even to stand in for a new kind of universal foundation for rights and claims. However, with ‘terra plena’ I attempt to show the meaning of Madre Tierra for a pluriversal, rather than universal, model of collective voice. In specific instances it becomes evident that Madre Tierra functions as a literary device that keeps ontological space open, rather than reifying one particular cosmological approach.