The roses that knew from the concrete

This mediation opens with what kinds of plants survive in harsh conditions and how. Thinking through how certain plants, such as roses ( Rosa multiflora ), develop secondary compounds that people at once consider profitable and problematic, can help us understand how, why, and when capitalistic logics shift to extract value from what it previously discarded. Building on studies on waste, refusual, and fungibility, this meditation works to put four of this issue’s articles in conversation through ideas of ecology and racialization.