cocarosa

community herbalism practice placed at the intersection of plant medicine, popular education, urban agriculture, and ethnobotanical research. Methods were inspired by the legacy of my afro-indigenous teachers, my reverence to the earth, and indigenous futurism.

Select Research Areas

Sacred Under Siege: Coca, Roses, and Shared Andean Legacy of the War on Drugs

With a focus on Colombia’s political-historical context, this workshop examines how coca and roses has been a site of economic and political violence that has displaced peoples’ relationship to medicine and land. In uplifting the struggles of cocaleros movement in the Andean region, the workshop concludes with the question: what is the role of the herbalist in the struggle against the war on drugs in the context of the US?
Regenerative Economics

In the name of sustainability, this workshop takes a critical look at the wellness industrial complex and its extractive economies. Toward a cohort of emerging herbalist, this workshop aims to co-design an herbalist vision of regenerative principles and frameworks for our respective practices.