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Property and Access among Western North Carolina Foragers Rebecca Shisler*, Rebecca Shisler,

In Western North Carolina, foraging for wild plants and fungi requires access to land where these things flourish. Property regimes—like the right to roam and right to exclude—inform access to public and private land in the region. Drawing on interviews with 31 foragers, I explore how ideas about property, commons, and gun culture shape access to forageable places.

Foragers had complex and diverging beliefs about wild plants/fungi and land ownership. Many positioned wild plants/fungi as common resources that “don’t belong to anyone” or “belong to everyone.” However, foragers who were also landowners described feelings of violation when finding evidence of trespassers on their land. More contradictions emerged around land; some foragers condemned trespassing because “it gives foragers a bad name,” while others challenged the morality of property entirely, noting “we’re all living on stolen land anyway.”

Across several interviews, foragers alluded to what I refer to as “the specter of a gun.” This is the idea that there is always a risk of a landowner or other person in the area who could threaten or shoot them for being on the wrong side of a property line. While in most cases, foragers had not encountered this situation directly, a persistent anxiety remained about the possibility of violence, which in turn caused foragers to self-discipline and remain vigilant when foraging.

I argue that the case of foragers in Western North Carolina provides a useful lens to better understand how United States settler ideas, and specifically Southern and Appalachian culture, shape ideas of property, surveillance, and the commons.