M. Jahi Chapell
Good morning and welcome to all of you – Perfecterkin, Perfectameerkats, NWAEGies, People of Science for the People new and old; agroecologists, friends, and family.
It is a little ironic that I’m giving this opening welcome, as one of the first pieces of advice I remember from Ivette was “You need to slow down when you’re speaking. You talk so fast, it makes it hard for someone whose first or primary language isn’t English to understand.” John was there as well, and – well, ok, you know, it’s 8:30 in the morning with a mixed crowd, so let’s, let’s edit slightly and say that John said “Well, English IS my first and primary language, and you talk so fast, I don’t [CENSORED WORD] understand what you’re saying either.”
Which is to say, I have practiced this talk a couple of times, so hopefully, I can show Ivette and John that it takes less than two decades for me to finally follow their advice.
When I was invited to give this opening welcome, I was immediately struck by what an honor it is – Ivette is a dear friend, a mentor, an esteemed member of SEAS’s faculty, a pivotal agroecologist, James Crowfoot Collegiate Professor, a lead author of the 2009 International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, author of over 100 journal articles and five books, recipient of an honorary degree from Puerto Rico’s Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, a 2022 inductee into the National Academy of Sciences, a 2023 elected member of the 243-year old American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a mentor to practically countless undergraduate, masters, doctoral students and postdocs. I also felt a bit intimidated by the task before me, to appropriately open this celebration of Ivette, who is a dear friend, a mentor, an esteemed member of SEAS’s faculty, a pivotal agroecologist, James Crowfoot Collegiate Professor… well, you may have gotten the picture.
I realized, the challenge before me was how to introduce the Beyoncé of Agroecology… which of course, that makes John Vandermeer, Jay-Z. Which, seems likely to be the first time and maybe the last time that our own Jay-V will be compared to a rapper.
But the comparison with Beyoncé (Queen Bey to our own Ivette Perfecto, Comandanta P) is not a facile one. Well, ok, it’s facile, but it’s not JUST a facile one. They are both “multi-hypenates” – you know, singer [hyphen] amazing dancer [hypen] prolific writer – and that’s just Ivette.
Similarly, the field of agroecology has its share of hyphens – people have commonly come to refer to it being composed of MOVEMENT, PRACTICE, and SCIENCE. And Ivette has contributed ever so deeply to each of those elements. She is a consummate research ecologist, communicator, teacher, mentor, supporter, activist, and scholar.
And one thing that makes this introductory welcome so challenging is that Ivette is so good at just quietly, consistently, passionately doing the work. Compared to, for example, some people whose initials may be J. V., or J. C. (point to self), who may tend towards the engineering school of presenting our work – tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em, tell ‘em what you’re telling ‘em, and conclude by telling ‘em what you just told ‘em – Ivette tends to just BE THERE, DOING THE WORK, her quiet guidance and dedication always moving the needle towards knowledge, positive change, kindness, and justice.
When I was speaking to my mother yesterday about trying to write this welcome, she said “well, it sounds like Ivette is a quiet stream with a mighty roar.” Which sounds so good, and feels so right, I perhaps should have gotten her to write the whole thing. (She also reminded me of what she said of one of her doctoral mentors: her tiny feet have left giant footprints. Having known Ivette for 23 years, I realize I’ve never really looked that closely at her feet, but it is fair to say that her footprints loom large in my life, the lives of many others, and throughout agroecology, science, and struggles in the US, Latin American and internationally for people’s power.)
But – let’s stick with the quiet stream and mighty roar bit then. Because, of course, we all know the power of a running body of water. It carves up and shapes mountains, it moves tons upon tons of terrestrial materials, it provides sustenance, kinetic energy, supports living beings in and around it; it can be quiet, like my mom said; and it can result in roaring, tremendous, majestic new vistas, in waterfalls, lakes, and canyons. A stream, a river, continues its work, day upon day, reshaping the world around it, ever changing itself yet seemingly, simultaneously appearing to be an unchanging constant – gathering from multiple sources across an entire landscape, to go from trickles and deep sources and raindrops to become a mighty, roaring phenomenon!
Some things are so powerfully and constantly present that they become hard to see. As they say, fish don’t see the water they swim in. So I’d say that even as we list and celebrate Ivette’s well-deserved accolades and accomplishments, we can forget or miss all the ways her contributions, to agroecology and beyond, are all around us.
Which brings me to one of my deepest interests as a researcher — Institutions. As a starting point, institutions are often summarized in social science as “norms, rules, and values.” These are the written and unwritten rules that shape how behave and interact socially. They’re sometimes called the “rules of the game,” and often we don’t even notice them. But they strongly influence what we think is ok and not ok; how and when we react to different situations and actions by others; they’re why I don’t maybe quote verbatim the exact words John used before in front of a mixed audience at a university in the early morning.
In other words – institutions are part of the air we breathe; the water we swim in, the traditions we have around us and the rules and patterns we make.
And it is no exaggeration to say that Ivette is an institution.
Now, she might never admit it. But there is a Perfecto way of doing things. There is an Perfecto way of listening, thinking, questioning, connecting, researching, teaching, mentoring, even dancing. But it is easy to miss, because Ivette carries it lightly. You would simply not know that she is an institution by meeting her on the street, or taking one of her classes. In conversation, you might update some of your beliefs, or question a result, or learn a new social, ecological, or political angle on something. At a party, you might notice some of us trying to copy some moves from her awesome dancing. But you probably would not consciously realize that you were dancing with an institution.
I spoke a week or two ago with a former PhD student of John and Ivette’s, Dr. Zachary Hajian-Forooshani. And talking to him made me feel a lot better about how I was a little stumped at first around giving this welcome. Zach said:
“You know, she doesn’t make a big deal about much of anything, but she does everything. She’s always there doing a lot, doing everything. From the field to writing. But another notable thing about her is that she is a very very gentle steward of organizations; of students.”
I had a somewhat similar experience speaking with John, Ivette’s intellectual and life partner of many years. Like me and Zach, he gestured to the fact that Ivette’s influence on his own work and thought was all throughout his work, his thinking, his experiences. And as often happens with an Institution, as he thought through it, more and more examples came to surface that were so big and always-there that they could contradictorily blend in – mighty bodies of water coming together, but you have to work your way upstream to reach where they have come together so seamlessly.
John shared with me that he would never have appreciated the role of culture in political transformation without Ivette’s work. That getting to know Ivette as a Puerto Rican, a person of and embedded in that culture, brought insights into his way of analyzing things politically that would never have come from reading or casual conversations with people. His appreciation of how culture impacts political issues deepened. From Ivette’s critical thinking, her analysis and lived experience, also brought to the fore the importance of education in the Global South. Her influence got him thinking about the importance of collaboration, learning, sharing knowledge and pedagogy, working with people around the world on questions from the basic and theoretical to the applied and detailed.
Together, Ivette and John have taught courses in Nicaragua, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Colombia, Italy, Austria, Czechia, Spain, Cuba, Puerto Rico – AND in Michigan – including the former long-running Michigan field ecology course they co-taught.
The Michigan field ecology course that I took in 2000. The field ecology course that set my course to be here with you all today. The field ecology course, with its interactions with Ivette, with John, with the faculty from Natural Resources and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology that they got out to the George Reserve. The course where they encouraged us to learn and re-embrace a naturalist’s curiosity from simply walking through a forest, looking and listening and questioning. Asking questions about moss growth patterns, ant foraging behavior, or competition from zebra mussels; and talking about politics, the world outside the forest; global development, history, imperialism, over meals cooked together and drinks by the fire.
For John, for Zach, for me, for many of us – our thinking on the behavior, history and current abuses of the US, our thinking on the increasingly corporatized university, on environmental justice – still grows and has been shaped, in some ways invisibly, yet undeniably, by the clarity of Ivette’s questions, and her unquestionable commitment to her convictions. I say that she holds so much lightly – but her lightness and humor are simply woven within the profound depth of her values of justice, people’s sovereignty, and the viability and necessity and possibility of positive change.
I have heard criticisms now and again of Ivette’s activism and, you know, there continues to be a struggle in the lived culture of science around how and when one should transparently express your values. There sometimes seems to be what I think is a bit of a weird, if unspoken, assumption that somehow your values, your subjectivities, your biases are somehow less powerful if they are unspoken. That somehow, if you don’t EXPRESS your biases, they are less likely rather than MORE likely to interfere with the honest pursuit of understanding the world. And I wonder, I wonder if perhaps it is less a consequence of a supposed commitment to objectivity – whatever that is – and more a fear. A fear that if you speak your values, they may be challenged by others; and so if we keep them safeguarded from our colleagues, the things we really want to believe, deep inside, don’t have to be rethought or tested under the scrutiny of others. A fear that Ivette does not seem to suffer from. Or of course, the basic fear that OTHERS may dismiss your work, unfairly, because you’ve admitted that you have opinions beyond p-values. Which, of course, is not an unfounded fear! I said, very deliberately, that I have heard criticisms of Ivette’s activism – but in pretty much every case, the speaker has not pointed to a flaw in her science. Rather, they have seemingly just assumed her science must be flawed because of her vocal commitments to a better world for all through agroecology, food sovereignty, and food justice.
Which is not to say that Ivette would ever claim her science to be flawless. But as with so much of her work, her commitments to rigor are always around, even if they’re not necessarily LOUD. That is to say, I haven’t heard Ivette TALK about rigor so much as LIVE it. One of my favorite ways to sum up working with John and Ivette and their commitment to well-done science is the sentence “Well, ok, I liked my idea better, but yours is more correct.” Even as Ivette is seriously committed to her work, her values, her co-conspirator-ship with people’s struggles for a more just and ecologically beautiful world, she does so much with a sense of humor, and a sense of good humor. As a consummate collaborator, she accepts and incorporates critique and contradiction of her work, and offers it as well.
When I interviewed John about Ivette’s lifework, he emphasized how he and Ivette make each other’s science better.
He said, “Scientifically: she’s the one who criticizes whatever I do. I know she’s going to criticize it and that’s why I bring it up to her. It’s her saying ‘Well that doesn’t make any sense.’” And so, he said “it’s hard to separate the two of them in terms of their analyses – it’s hard to point out where what he thinks is independent of what she thinks.” That they “Disagree a lot but they’re both Hegelians at least insofar as that they strive to figure out what the synthesis seems to be.” If you’ve been in any extended scientific conversation with them, you know a synthesis is about to start when you hear Ivette say “Noooooooo, John.” It can be very interesting to be part of, or frankly just to watch. You know you’re working with dedicated thinkers when they debate something for an hour, and they still disagree, but that’s because, say, John’s become convinced by Ivette’s argument, and Ivette’s become convinced of John’s argument, and so they’re still passionately trying to think through it together, but now from opposite sides than where they started.
For all of Ivette’s accomplishments, dedication, and work, it is amazing to see how – at least from external appearances – Ivette carries herself seriously, yet lightly. Traveling with Ivette from time to time, it is fascinating and, as someone who loves Ivette as a mentor and friend, a bit exhilarating to see how excited others get to meet her. Whether it’s a dedicated, experienced myrmecologist, an aspiring tropical ecologist, or an international advocate for peasant farming, when you’re outside of Ann Arbor, you’re reminded of what a rockstar she is. Her unassuming dedication continues to create important influence on the agroecology and food sovereignty movements worldwide. An inspiration for many, but not least of whom are so so many Latin American activists, students, and ecologists. (Even outside of academia, I’ll occasionally meet someone who says “You worked with Ivette Perfecto??? She’s so cool!”) Ivette was a crucial leader and contributor within the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, a – as John called it – “real mover and shaker.” The IAASTD (the awkwardly pronounceable abbreviation for that important report) was funded and co-sponsored by the World Bank, the United Nations, and the World Health Organization. It incorporated knowledge-holders and representatives from civil society—consumers and producers’ groups, governments, and corporations. There was significant worry that it would be a vehicle for corporate and government scientists to push false solutions for our problems of food security, sustainability, and social vulnerability. And Ivette was a crucial and relentless ally of social movements, she was harshly attacked by corporate interests, and – when the voices of civil society along with the scientific expertise of Ivette and other colleagues got the better of corporate actors through very unfairly having better arguments on the merits – the association of global agrochemical companies and Syngenta withdrew from the report. I remember talking with Ivette during various points of this whole process, and Ivette, being Ivette, recounted these goings-on – but as with acclaim, Ivette seems to wear these kinds of disputes or adversity somehow both lightly, and seriously.
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When I started thinking about what to say for this welcome, I thought immediately of a conversation I had with Ivette in Nicaragua, near the start of my graduate career. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to research, how I wanted to frame it, and how I could bring ecological and social science together. It was a pivotal conversation – it was the start of the idea that became my PhD thesis (and later my first book, Beginning to End Hunger). Yet, in line with what I’ve said here this morning, I can no longer recall the details of that conversation. (Of course, it also was literally 20 years ago.) But I do remember it brought the first of many realizations that gathered together with other ideas and interactions and eventually led, essentially, to the career I have today. As I think to key points in my graduate career, it is certainly Ivette, as much as John, who helped me pull together who *I* wanted to be as a researcher and scholar-activist. It’s hard to remember where and when some of it began, but I believe it was Ivette who first introduced me to the quote from the late historian Howard Zinn, who said “You can’t be neutral on a moving train.” (Though, while I’m talking about my formative graduate years, I also simply must mention, in addition to John and Ivette, the key role played by another mentor of mine, the late Michigan Professor Emeritus Jerry Smith, whose memory we will be honoring tomorrow, and who also had a subtle way of helping one realize what then seemed both obvious, and honorable.)
I informally audited one of Ivette’s courses early in grad school, and I got introduced to participatory budgeting, to the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement of Brazil. It was at Ivette’s invitation that I attended my first environmental justice conference, here at Michigan.
And again, true to form, in my new position at Michigan State University, I came by chance across another ripple from quiet, mighty stream that is Ivette. In casual conversation with my colleague Brian Teppen, a professor of soil chemistry with an interest in how the university can contribute to change – he mentioned that he had had an interest in the ways bias still shaped society and universities in particular. But it wasn’t until after a talk that Ivette gave there, that he came out of a lecture clicking on what implicit bias meant, and how important it was – within soil science, or any science – to grapple with the social, the political, the cultural, and the impacts of power and history.
Ivette is, indeed, an institution – a quiet stream with a mighty roar.
The even larger river of agroecology does not have a single source, and for many reasons, it would not be accurate to call Ivette THE mother of agroecology. But as someone who has nurtured a seemingly boundless flow of insights, discoveries, practices, people, and even movements, she is profoundly and incontrovertibly A mother of what agroecology has been, is, and will be in the future.
My deepest welcome to you all, and to Ivette – my love and thanks.