(Current Research) Revisiting Black Gardens
Naya first studied Black diaspora gardens as sites of ecological knowledge, power, and everyday thriving as a Master’s student at the University of Texas at Austin. Her MA fieldwork focused on Afromexican gardens in Central Veracruz {2006-2008}. Her current garden-related projects and collaborations build on this field experience.
Naya recently received the Anne S. Chatham Fellowship for Medicinal Botany from the Garden Club of America to study and archive African-American gardening and the Great Migration. This research engages with questions familiar to (ethno)botanical research regarding knowledge transmission, migration, and plant use, while engaging with theoretical interventions from Black Ecologies.
This research is part of Naya’s broader research lab, the Black Botany Studio, at the University of California Santa Cruz. The studio promotes creative inquiry about Black diaspora gardens past and present through research, mentorship, and collaborations with artist-scholars.
Naya continues to collaborate with the Alliance for African American Health in Central Texas (AAAHCT), as a curriculum designer and facilitator for their intergenerational gardening program, IGS2.
Medicinal herb garden on a rooftop, Central Veracruz, 2007