Mergoat

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Mergoat Mag is a publication dedicated to investigating the contemporary ecological situation of Southern Appalachia and the cultures shaped by it.
MERGOAT

Mergoat Land Design and Restoration

Sorrel Inman

[email protected]
(865) 250-6140

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MERGOAT

Mergoat Land Design and Restoration

Sorrel Inman

[email protected]
(865) 250-6140

Our publication seeks to explore Southern Appalachia at the intersection of ecological apocalypse and restorative futurity—
Who are we? How do we locate ourselves ecologically and politically in this overwhelming global moment? What transformations are opening within our region? What structural challenges impede these transformations? How has the Southern Appalachian imagination evolved within these conditions?

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  • 4 fresh issues per year. Starting with the upcoming edition, Volume 2 No. 2 (Borders)!
  • All subscriptions include access to digital versions of each issue, which you can find in your Mergoat library
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cover of mergoat mag volume 2 issue 1 - an illustration of three elderly granny sisters harvest kudzu with scythe

Volume 2 Issue 1

The Invasion Issue: A Horde, A Heap, A Pile...

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What are invasive species? While this question seems simple, it has become one of the most controversial topics in popular ecological discourse—riddled with misinformation, malpractice, and magical thinking. Varying opinions amongst practitioners of ecological conservation, permaculture, herbalism, and craft have emerged, often carving deep conceptual and practical divisions.

We aren’t going to resolve this conflict in one issue of a magazine, nor over the course of a single year. Our hope, though, is to open a clearing where diverse practitioners can learn from one another, while also participating in good-faith critique and dialogue. Conflict, collaboration, vulnerability, and humility are all necessary parts of this process—because at the end of the day, one fact stands tall above all others: no single person, organization, or practice can resolve the crisis of invasive species. Is it possible, though, to identify some fundamental definitions and realities we can agree on in order to strengthen our individual practices and collective impact?

About Our Pricing

Mergoat Magazine Sliding Scale Breakdown
Sliding Scale: The following slides provide a breakdown of the current sliding scale pricing. If you're able, we ask that you subscribe at the solidarity level in order to help us subsidize discounted subscriptions.
Discounted Rate: This price level is intended to serve working class, queer, and BIPOC folx. Print and digital: $75/year or $20/every 3 months. Digital only is $55/year or $15/every 3 months.
Standard Rate. This is retail price: what you would pay at the bookstore. Print and digital: $90/year or $25/every 3 months. Or digital only: $75/year or $20/3 months.
Solidarity Rate: This price is for subscribers who wish to invest in the longevity of our project. Print and digital: $150/year or $40/every 3 months. Or digital only: $120/year or $30/every 3 months.
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Call For Entries

Mergoat Mag Call for Entries Lawns edition
Grass. This word is a shortcut for a family of plants containing as many as 12,000 unique species. Sadly, for the vast majority of people in the US and Europe, this word has become synonymous with another cultural phenomenon: the lawn. We say cultural phenomenon, but in keeping with one of the central theses of this project, we should clarify that the lawn is in fact *both* a cultural *and* ecological phenomenon.
The American lawn was pressed like a violent brand into the flesh of this land by European colonizers. It is thought to have been introduced around the time of Thomas Jefferson’s presidency during the first decade of the 19th century. Jefferson himself may have been one of the first to introduce a European-style lawn at his Monticello estate in Charlottesville, Virginia–right in the heart of Appalachia. The lawn, then, emerged as one of the first symbols of the vast wealth disparity that would come to characterize the region for centuries to come.
To be sure, it was not the hands of the founding fathers who prepared the ground, installed, and maintained these early lawns. Rather, this arduous labor was carried out by enslaved Africans long before the invention of the modern lawn mower. The freshly tamed sea of rolling green, though, was much more than a symbol of wealth, colonial violence, slavery, and gentrification. The appearance of the lawn upon the American landscape also represents a dark shift in evolutionary history–that is, the usurpation of elitist aesthetic preferences over ecological health.
This does not mean there were no human interactions with these landscapes before the domestic lawn or the introduction of European horticultural practices. Indigenous peoples had engaged the land for millennia prior to the European invasion, storing a wealth of traditional knowledges–many of which have been lost to genocide. The remainder are under significant threat of extinction. In disparate contradiction to this complex web of traditional indigenous knowledges, the lawn also signifies a core characteristic of the colonial imagination. In conjunction with the religious narratives that picture humans existing in dominion over the earth and the hubris of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, the lawn itself represents a significant shift away from an understanding of the human as an ecologically embedded species.
The statistics associated with the American lawn today are nothing short of breathtaking. More than 40 million acres of the American landscape are covered by turfgrass lawns, requiring an estimated 9 billion gallons of water PER DAY to sustain–that is ⅓ of all residential water usage in the US. What’s more, 90 million pounds of fertilizer and 70 million pounds of pesticides are dumped on these lawns annually to ensure homogeneity and the deceptively lush green.
In terms of stormwater absorption, the American lawn might as well be an impervious parking lot. In Vol 1 Issue 2 of Mergoat Magazine, Kathryn Kolb reminded us that turf lawns and their shallow roots shed no less than 70% of the rainwater that falls on them. Comparatively, the foliage of native grasslands and woodlands allows for massive capture and transpiration before stormwater even touches the ground. What’s more, deep fibrous roots of native grasses and trees create a more porous substrate, allowing for deep absorption during major rain events. Some studies suggest that average forests absorb up to fourteen inches of water per hour, compared to the average two inches per hour absorbed by lawns.
The toxic runoff from lawns in addition to the exponentially higher rate of stormwater runoff has led to a tragic situation for our watersheds–even before accounting for the inputs from agriculture, dams, and industrial-scale commercial waste. When these grim realities are considered in relation to the fact that lawns support little to no life, one begins to wonder why the hell our society still believes this cultural artifice is an acceptable landscape strategy.
The American lawn is not only one of the primary symbols of entrenched coloniality and white supremacy within our society, but it is frequently made up of invasive species. Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon), “Kentucky” bluegrass (Poa pratensis), tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea), and zoysia grass (Zoysia spp.) are all common non-native invasive species used in the production of the American lawn. What's more, in an effort to at once mask their social status and comply with city ordinances, folks who cannot afford homogenous lawns often resort to mowing whatever mixture of herbaceous plants are present around their house. Even these mixed “lawns” tend to be made up of invasive species mixed with some of the grasses listed above, plants like nut sedge, johnson grass, garlic mustard, crab grass, wintercreeper, privet, and creeping charlie.
In this issue of Mergoat Magazine, we launch a sweeping polemic against the American lawn and the epistemology, politics, and social conditions that sustain it. What is the history of the American lawn? How does this history relate directly to Appalachia? What are the political implications of the American Lawn? Does the American lawn reflect epistemological relations to white supremacy and fascism? How do notions of cleanliness, disgust, and dominion figure in the epistemology of lawns? What does a post-lawn society look like? Can the rich be convinced to relinquish their lawns for the benefit of a thriving and biodiverse world?
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What is Mergoat Mag?

Notes from Our Publisher: What is Mergoat Mag? Mergoat Magazine is a publication that provides a collective, interdisciplinary record of the ecological situation throughout Southern Appalachia and the broader Southeast.
Ecological situation is an intentional, yet ambiguous phrase. While ecology is a specific scientific discipline, we believe that human culture itself signifies our inclusion as an ecologically embedded species; therefore, we understand human society to be inextricably linked to matters of ecology.
In this spirit, we seek to explore: the complex and changing ecologies of our region; how these ecologies relate to one another and the rest of the earth; and how these ecological matters materialize in our daily lives on the planes of culture, politics and identity. In order to achieve this, one of our primary goals is to work towards deconstructing artificial binaries such as "nature" and "technology," or "wilderness" and "society."
There will always be science-oriented writing in Mergoat Magazine and ecological questions will always guide our work. Nevertheless, we reject the notion that ecological practice ends with observations or descriptions of natural phenomena from a detached, scientific spectator.
Ecology is impermanent, always becoming. Ecology is relational, and observing ecological relations provides pathological information for assessing a community's health. Ecology is political, and the political process affects ecologies. Ecology is a negotiation—a reciprocal exchange, for good or ill. We do not exist as objective observers outside of our ecology. Rather, we are enfleshed participants that emerge within material ecological networks. Mergoat Magazine explores this network of relationships on the horizon of history and futurity in Southern Appalachia.