Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

You are here

Scape. Humanity.

Celeste Ledesma's picture

Scape. Humanity.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to my scape site this week. Aside from this being a crazy week, it’s been crazy cold. I decided to follow Anne’s suggestion and write a little about the background of the rugby pitch. I couldn’t really find a lot of information about the history of the field, with regards to when it was made and started being utilized by the college. In recent years, the field has been used by the bi-co rugby team as well as a nearby school’s youth football team for practices, games, and sometimes social gatherings. Of course, there’s the undocumented community that takes advantage of the space as well, such as folks from the neighborhood jogging, walking their dogs, and riding their bikes. When the weather is nice and the field is in full use by this variety of communities, this space seems to be full of life and culture. However, this is evident to me only from a very human perspective. I find life and comfort in this space when I think about it in relation to other humans. I want to find comfort in this scape without having to take humanity into account.

Comments

Anne Dalke's picture

It's curious to me, Celeste, that you want to "find comfort in this scape without having to take humanity into account," since a rugby pitch is, by definition, something created by humans (it would be interesting to re-read the creation of sports fields through an ecological lens, wouldn't it? the leveling out of natural contours, to even out the playing field...?) I know of various initiatives--eco-friendly turf grass, water-based marking paint, recycled tires--but what of the very act of leveling that precedes all this....?