Michael Sheridan teaches anthropology and environmental studies at Middlebury College in Vermont.

Chap 1 Introduction: Approaching the Boundary

Multi-sited ethnography

Political ecology

Ethnobotany

Institutions

Outline of the book

Chap 2 Beating the Bounds for Boundary Plants

Structure, territory, and tenure

From structure to process

Symbolic boundary processes

Monomarcation and polymarcation

The spatial turn

The plant and multispecies turns

The ontological turn

Re-turning to political economy

Conclusion

Chap 3 Tanzania: Knots of Peace on Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro as a social-ecological system

Living land tenure

Ancestors in the landscape

Knots of peace, order, and meaning

Conclusion

Chap 4 Cameroon: Bounded Vitality and Rank in the Oku Monarchy

Oku as a social-ecological system

Boundary plants and land tenure in Oku

Social organization and boundary plants on patrol

Masquerades, witchcraft, and life-force in Oku

Life flowing through boundary plants

Conclusion

Chap 5 Papua New Guinea: Embodying Places, Emplacing Bodies

The vegecultures of Oceania

Papua New Guinea as a social-ecological system

Cordyline as a botanica franca

Mapping social relations with boundary plants

Beauty, place, and order

Conclusion

Chap 6 French Polynesia: Rank and Revitalization in the Society Islands

Vegecultures and social ranking in Remote Oceania

The Society Islands as social-ecological systems

Boundary plants and monuments to hierarchy

The conjunctures of cordyline and colonialism

Revitalized boundaries in a new society

Decentralized protection and power

Conclusion

Chap 7 St Vincent: Dragons in a Postslavery Peasant Society

Boundary plants in the Plantationocene

St. Vincent as a social-ecological system

Boundary struggles in the provision grounds

The social organization of dragons

The red dragon is the guide

Conclusion

Chap 8 Conclusion: Beyond Boundaries

Methods revisited

Boundaries and routes of power in the past

Boundary plants and the roots of power today

Beyond the bounds

References