The human story is one of continual branching movement, out of Africa to every corner of the globe. When people talk of blood and soil, as if their ancestors sprung fully formed from the earth of a particular place, it involves a kind of forgetting.( Hari Kunzru)

Carolina De Robertis
About This Quote

People often talk about blood and soil which refers to the concept of the “blood” in one’s ancestry being traced to a particular place in the world. This is in contrast to the human story which is not based on bloodlines but on movement. The people who came from Africa were not born in Africa, they moved there due to various circumstances. They move around the world and tell their stories and we tend to think of them as people born and bred in a particular location and their experience and culture as being rooted in that location. The human story isn’t about blood and soil – it’s about movement – it’s about people coming together around ideas, creating new cultures, learning from each other, adapting to different locations and continually expanding their horizons along with their understanding of themselves and their place in the world.

Source: Radical Hope: Letters Of Love And Dissent In Dangerous Times

Some Similar Quotes
  1. I just don't see why the past has to matter. - Cassandra Clare
  2. Do you think we can be friends?” I asked. He stared up at the ceiling. “Probably not, but we can pretend. - Priya Ardis
  3. Vane grabbed me. “DuLac, let’s chat.” British-speak for “Stand still while I yell at you. - Priya Ardis
  4. For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>Not like hermits who... - Hermann Hesse
  5. Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny. - Steve Maraboli
More Quotes By Carolina De Robertis
  1. Colonial power, patriarchal power, capitalist power must always and everywhere be battled, because they never, ever quit. (Junot Diaz)
  2. Books were already a familiar refuge, after all, and they still took me in without the slightest judgment. They don’t close to you the way a person can. You might feel as though you don’t belong anywhere, least of all in your own home, you...
  3. The human story is one of continual branching movement, out of Africa to every corner of the globe. When people talk of blood and soil, as if their ancestors sprung fully formed from the earth of a particular place, it involves a kind of forgetting.(...
  4. She didn't mind the sacrifice. It seemed enough for a life, to give yourself to music the way nuns give themselves to God. To vow. To surrender. Only music, after all, made life bearable. Only with music did she feel--what was it? Free? Happy? No,...
  5. It was her grandfather who'd told her the tale of this particular violin, over and over, as if the telling could stave off loss, as if the weight and scope of human history were not found in books or in those mythic universities in Rome...
Related Topics