Rooted in Culture and Nature: Jamaican Root Tonics in
New York City

Over the past 20 years she has researched, documented, and presented the plant stewards of meaningful places throughout North America for legacy institutions, including the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, and Slow Food. Her fieldwork and curated projects, in collaboration with several organizations, have contributed to a more inclusive mapping of North American agricultural biodiversity, resulting in the restoration of multiple food landscapes and economies. Makalé holds degrees in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Virginia (M.A.) and George Mason University (B.A.), as well as a Certificate in Horticulture from The New York Botanical Garden. She is a contributing author to four books and multiple articles on landscapes and material culture. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Southern Foodways Alliance and as a multiyear panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State and New Jersey Council on the Arts, and on the Advisory Board for the Association of Rural Heritage and Sustainability in Ndjilasseme, Senegal and PhoScope, a think tank on light.