Merched y Tir

Cefndir/Background

This Utopias Bach experiment is an open-ended exploration, focused initially on creatively exploring the relationship between women and land,particularly welsh speaking women and women of colour, as a potential mini node of transformation for environmental and social justice [Just transition]

We started intially (November 2021) with a small group, meeting over zoom. And we decided to try moving into ‘real world’ meetings hosted by each of us during 2022. Each of these hosted meetings will be designed by the host in terms of participants, focus and activity.

Discussion, ideas and images below, a kind of note of our migrations….

Pwy dan ni? Who are we?

Audrey West

Catrin Roberts

Durre Shahwar

Elinor Gwynn

Ffion Jones

Lindsey Colbourne

Salamatu J Fada

Samina Ali

Seran Dolma

Wanda Zyborska

Siân Shakespeare

Cyfarfodydd: Meetings (3.11.21 & 16.12.21)

Agendas/Agendâu

These meetings were facilitated by Samina Ali and Lindsey Colbourne.

Rhai nodiadau a chwestiynau o'n trafodaethau: Some notes and questions from our discussions

# What does it mean to care for land?

# Generating connections with land without ‘ownership’

# Access to land - social justice - space for (human and non-human) survival and wellbeing

# Learning to ‘Share the land’ – eg curlew and farmer ‘I’m trying to survive here and the Curlew is too’

# Working with tiny pieces of land, growing and collaborating with plants (and the successes and failures)

# exploring and knowing the local

# gerdded llwybrau lleol yn ddiweddar gyda fy mab bychan: walking local paths with my baby son ['Minor Walk Manifesto' - Alec Finlay]

# Succession – noticing/documenting changes over a year on a particular piece of land

# Spiritual, emotional and physical relationship with the land – ceremony and ritual

# Embodied presence. Flamenco – grounded, with spirit – Flamenco travelled from India to Spain

# Trauma of colonial legacy – (non-Welsh speaking) people coming again to do things to the land without asking eg recent ‘industrial’ take over of farm land to plant conifer forests

# Friends of farmers – could we try new ways to make connections between women farmers and non-farmers (eg incomers who often try to buy land), providing opportunities for non-farmes to be on/do something with/ collaborate /understand/learn about the land (potentially bringing income to farmers/helping them to stay on their land)?

# Nomad (choosing to move – refugee (forced to move) – rooted (never want to move)

# Roots – in a place, when we wander from our root place, other pieces of land become assimilated

# Women’s history and land in different cultures e.g. Jamaica and woman being the main workers of the land, woman not allowed direct connection / “ownership” of land and space – or more accurately to belong to land

# Working land for survival -/- Growing/care of plants (mango, lemon)

# Syrian refugees - no place to grow food; homeless friend - no place to live: https://www.fourthland.com/echoes-of-the-dancing-sky

# Moving around in response to call of the land

# Home, culture, history, assumption of race – what is an ‘outsider’: Genes, people and languages

# Re-emplace ourselves in country

# Connection to piece of land as identity – retaining or developing sense of identity even though distanced/estranged from land

#  Going back to land you’ve left

#  Displacement from land/ local and intergenerational

#  Feeling foreign to land moved away from

#  Language and land and placenames

# Cynefin: Journey –territory or air or spirit in common is what makes us human. Where we belong or in between.

#  Ancestral land – rebuilding the ruins (tiny slate houses)

# Y gwawn sydd yn ein cysylltu efo’r tir – tenau ac anweladwy …ond yn anhygoel o wydn.

# The gossamer which connects us with land – so thin as to be invisible ….but so tough.

#  Yng Nghymru mae lleisiau merched y tir yn fud, ar y cyfan ond yn Jamaica, a llawer o wledydd eraill merched sy’n trin y tir. Arferai hyn fod yn wir yn llawer o froydd chwarelyddol y gogledd

# In Wales the voices of women of the land are mute, on the whole, but in Jamaica and several other countries women work the land. This used to be so in many of the slate quarrying areas of North Wales.

# “Maith Natur” – collaboration with plants (making balms etc); knowing the plants; traditional uses

#  Connection to land through women and pregnancy

# Connection to land and culture

# Poetry and land

#  Femininity, sensitivity and land

#  Spiritual connection to the land

#  Particular culture of men and land

# Yw merched yn fwy debyg o ofalu am, a meithrin y tir na’i dreisio, neu ydy dynion yn gweld ac yn trin y tir mewn ffordd tebyg?

# Are women more likely to care for and nurture the land than rape it, or do men see and treat the land similarly?

# Listening to the land. Direct conversation with the land and our intrinsic nature

# Doing something collectively - Open and whatever someone wants to explore – some connection with ‘your’ or another land you want to explore – experience through someone else’s lens

# Could we be like mycelium?

Be’ sy nesa? What’s next?

# Interest expressed around meeting 4-6 weekly

# Idea of migrating into each person’s physical land / space connection as a way of deepening and developing this theme that has brought us together

-        This could involve (each of us) hosting on any land of your choosing, whether in your garden or a piece of land that you have a specific interest in, or feel strongly connected to, or perhaps that you feel excluded from

-        The activity, focus and people would be entirely up to the person hosting – something you’d like to explore collectively.

-        It could involve inviting others from outside the group

-        How long the ‘visit’ would be would be up to the host (could be short or longer), and perhaps include some virtual aspect if some people can’t make it.

# By hosting/visiting each other in our different lands, we would have a framework for collectively exploring these different aspects and interests. In this way we’d get to experience different ways, contexts, women and their connection to land and opportunity for little ‘experiments’ eg

# Siân - Moel y Ci

# Elinor – Olyniaeth: Succession, noticing and responding to land over a year eg starting in January: does this link to the Utopias Bach Succession project hosted by Julie Upmeyer?

# Audrey: Creating a tropical fruit orchard

# Wanda: Connecting with trees

# Lindsey: Friends of farmers – could we try new ways to make connections between women farmers and non-farmers (eg incomers who often try to buy land)

We also talked about funding, and whether Utopias Bach could provide some basic funding for travel expenses for those travelling furthest (and help organise home stays perhaps), as well as a fund for ‘hosting’ of say £200 each time. It may also be that funding applications to external organisations could be made for specific hosting events, or that as the work progresses, we find a way of fully funding our time.

Each of us could start forming ideas for ‘hosting’ (but no requirement to do this!)

Cyfarfod nesa: Next meeting

Sian will host the next meeting at Moel y Ci, Tregarth end Jan/early Feb.

Cyfarfod Moelyci Meeting 25.1.22

hosted by Siân Shakespear

Efo Audrey West, Catrin Roberts, Elinor Gwynn, Lindsey Colbourne, Salamatu J Fada, Seran Dolma, Wanda Zyborska, Siân Shakespeare

Meddyliau tra’n crwydro /
Thoughts during wanderings

(diolch i Siân Shakespear a Wanda Zyborska)

• Merched yn cefnogi ei gilydd ar randiroedd / Women supporting each other on allotments

• Dychwelyd i'r tir ar gyfer bwyta ac i gysylltu / Returning to the land for eating and bonding

• Rice pyramid - Nigeria - self sufficiency, return to land (and investment in land by companies) - parallel with industrial tree planting in Wales?

• Gwrthdroi'r amgau tir - dad-drefedigaethu / Reverse the enclosure – decolonising

• Arbrofion merched /Women’s experiments - no straight lines, growing things that ‘shouldn’t grow’

• 1 erw er mwyn bod yn hunangynhaliol  /1 acre to be self-sufficient

• Trychineb adeiladol / Constructive catastrophe

• Gall sgyrsiau achub y byd /Conversations can save the world

• Beth am i ni i gyd gael mynediad at dir i’w ffermio / What if we all access land to farm?

• Merched yn rhedeg tyddyn ac yn dad-drefedigaethu tir / Women running a small holding and decolonising land

• Newid araf - adfer bach / Slow change – restoration ‘bach’

Sylwi ac arbrofi / Noticing and experimenting

• Patio teimladwy / Poignant patio

• Pili-pala wedi cwympo = merch / Fallen butterfly = woman

• Coed sydd wedi goroesi / Surviving trees

• Merched yn marw / Dying women

• Gerddi a chwn - plastic du a phlanhigion / Gardens and dogs – black plastic and plants

• Cennau a mwsoglau / Lichens and mosses

• Llysiau'r ysgyfaint / Lungwort – Lleucu/Louise

• Cawl Suran / Sorrel soup

• Y tir sy’n rhoi - hwyaden blastic mewn domen dail - hen ddol frawychus ar fryn moel - cwblhau'r cylch / The giving land – a plastic duck in a compost pile – a scary old doll on a bald hill - completing the circle

Atgofion o adref a darnau eraill o dir / Reminders of home/other pieces of land

• Ydych chi'n gallu cael sbeis o Lawrwydden? / Do you get allspice from Bay?

• Jamaica - - - gorse and coconut - - - > and home Barmouth

• Arogl cnau coco o eithin / The smell of coconut from gorse.

• Is this a vine or a fruit tree? /Ydy hon yn winwydden neu’n bren ffrwyth?

• Dalawaja (Nigeria)/Moelyci(Cymru)

• Cerdded – llwybrau/walking – footpaths

• Tân – hel cynnud – llwch – cwrtaith i’r ardd/ Fire – gathering fuel – ash – good for gardens and allotments

• Dŵr – casglu, golchi, berwi/ Water – gather, wash, boil

• Tristwch y tawelwch / the sadness of the silence (where are the sounds of the farm?)

• Gwyrddni gwyllt a gerddi / Green wilderness and gardens

• Colli cyswllt / losing the connection

• Rhyfeddod – cyfoeth ffwng/ Wonderment – fungal richness

• Derwen – collen – draenen wen/ oak – hazel - hawthorn

• Mam – mother

• Styfnig fel mul – stubborn like a donkey

• Maeth mam – maeth tir / Mother’s nourishment – land’s nourishment

• Sychu – eithin – perlysiau/ Drying – gorse – herbs

• Magu – plant – anifeiliaid/ Rearing – children – animals

• Meithrin – plant – planhigion – anifeiliaid / Cherish or cultivate – children – plants – animals

• Bwyd – casglu – coginio – bwydo pobl ac anifeiliaid/ Food – gather – cook, feed people & animals

• Carn – cwt – crawiau – clytiau – caeau / Hoof – hut – slate pillars - fields

 Cyfarfod Llety Llwyd - Fferm Ffion 13.4.22

“What characterises care is not a detached analysis of available facts, but a careful experimentation by an involved actor who recognises that not all can be known, but something has to be done nonetheless” Anna Krzywoszynska

Links to things that came up in conversation: Iain Bigg’s critique of George Monbiot’s ‘Feral’ (rewilding) - ‘essaying self, wilderness and place’

Settling Nigeria’s nomadic farmers

Rastafari Farming

Introduction by Ffion Jones

“Before the visit from Merched Y Tir, I thought about what kinds of things I might do in order to offer an experience of the working farm. 

When I think of the working farm experience from my own perspective, I start from my place as a woman within this patriarchal world and work outwards in ever increasing spirals into the farm environment. 

The domestic; the walls of home. The place where gendered roles were magnified whilst growing up on an upland sheep farm. These divisions are omnipresent even within my current farm context where a woman is still having to juggle a myriad of roles within the world. 

In the past, on shearing day, or other points in the farm calendar where borrowed labour visited the farm, us women and girls would ‘feed’ the men, fetch and carry, wrap wool or watch from the peripheries. The kitchen of the home, along with a strange hybrid domesticity seen within the shearing shed (where we sometimes took afternoon tea) are markers for ‘how one might do things’ on a farm to give thanks and sustain the hard physical labour of men. Whilst this might seem out of touch with current discourses seeking to challenge gender division, it is actually hard to shake off such values. 

It felt important to welcome Merched Y Tir to Llety Llwyd with the promise of sustenance as thanks for their travel to my home. 

Around the kitchen table it felt like welcoming friends, with conversations flowing freely. My relationship to this farm is different. It is still home, but perhaps my spiritual homes resides within the land of the farm where I grew up – Cwmrhaiadr farm. 

In conversation, I try and explain how I came to be here – 

I had grown up with knowledge of an expectations placed on farmers’ wives and decided that I wouldn’t ever marry a farmer. Hec! If I could, I’d stay well clear!  As a teen, I rebelled perhaps against the traditional ideas and values so often embedded within the farming world.  

However, I met my partner, Ioan 13 years ago. He was a farmer, but not from farming stock. He was different to the young farmers I had encountered growing up; he was more open to the world out there somehow, and less closed-minded. His great uncle had inherited half the farm, and Ioan and I have a mortgage to pay for the other half. 

Whilst there is some gender division of roles on the farm, these are mostly for good reason (the domestic sphere is another story…but we’re always working to challenge that!). 

Time has of course, moved forwards and now, farm women choose to work towards their own dreams and ambitions. I juggle my farm role with being a mother and working part-time as a lecturer at Aberystwyth University where I teach Drama and Theatre.”

Lliniau gan Lindsey Colbourne

 Cae Coch, Rhosgadfan efo Elinor Gwynn 27.5.22

Lle fel man cyfarfod : Place as encounter

Lle fel man dysgu : Place as learning

Lle fel man creu : Place as creativity

Nodyn sydyn i rannu'r ddolen ar gyfer y wefan mapiau degwm (dan ofal Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru), os nad ydych chi wedi ei darganfod yn barod - rhag ofn bod rhywun yn ffansio sbrotian i ddysgu mwy am enwau caeau a defnydd tir yng Nghymru yng nghanol y 19fed ganrif. Adnodd gwych - oriau o bleser.

https://lleoedd.llyfrgell.cymru

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A quick note to share the link to the tithe map website (created by National Library Wales), if you haven't already come across it - in case anyone fancies exploring and learning some more about field names and land use in Wales in the mid-19th century. A fantastic resource - well worth a browse.

https://places.library.wales