Coming to terms with "non-native" and "invasive" plants
As plants and animals move from continent to continent, so do language speakers. Ideas can move across academic disciplines, too. So can people. Whilst researching English language education and assessment, Bonfiglio (2010) kept inserting himself in my thinking, (even though that work was only peripherally relevant to the specific area of research, language examinations for New Scots). Native, natural, nationalism: just three etymological siblings in a large family. And during the Trump campaign in 2016, I encounter the concept of nativism, nicely defined by Huber et al (2008) as " the practice of assigning values to real or imagined differences, in order to justify the superiority of the native, to the benefit of the native and at the expense of the non- native, thereby defending the native’s right to dominance." The nativist critical framework is not confined to the US: see for example Smith, 2016. Until recently I would have said I wanted a garden or allo...