| This study synthesizes and articulates what is known about the ecology and the gendered significances of the three most popular and indicative berry species of the Circumpolar north: lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea ), crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), and cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus ). Employing a meta-ethnographic research approach that is informed by tenets of decolonizing and feminism methodologies it seeks to understand how the phytogeography of these three species has established specific feminine geographies, and thus how the feminine recapitulates the vegetative geography. Results revealed that the ecosystems of the tundra and taiga have generated various "patchy" distributions of the three berry species across both time and space. Subsequently, this has manifested particular feminine travel patterns and notions of femininity embedded in berry places. The production of this work simultaneously speaks to the local picker and northern scholar, and includes four distinct berry monographs as well as an academic discussion of the various vegetative and gendered geographies established by such berries. |
