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    Cultivating Knowledge

    Biotechnology, Sustainability, and the Human Cost of Cotton Capitalism in India

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    Author(s)
    Flachs, Andrew
    Collection
    Knowledge Unlatched (KU)
    Language
    English
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    Abstract
    A single seed is more than just the promise of a plant. In rural south India, seeds represent diverging paths toward a sustainable livelihood. Development programs and global agribusiness promote genetically modified seeds and organic certification as a path toward more sustainable cotton production, but these solutions mask a complex web of economic, social, political, and ecological issues that may have consequences as dire as death. In Cultivating Knowledge anthropologist Andrew Flachs shows how rural farmers come to plant genetically modified or certified organic cotton, sometimes during moments of agrarian crisis. Interweaving ethnographic detail, discussions of ecological knowledge, and deep history, Flachs uncovers the unintended consequences of new technologies, which offer great benefits to some—but at others’ expense. Flachs shows that farmers do not make simple cost-benefit analyses when evaluating new technologies and options. Their evaluation of development is a complex and shifting calculation of social meaning, performance, economics, and personal aspiration. Only by understanding this complicated nexus can we begin to understand sustainable agriculture. By comparing the experiences of farmers engaged with these mutually exclusive visions for the future of agriculture, Cultivating Knowledge investigates the human responses to global agrarian change. It illuminates the local impact of global changes: the slow, persistent dangers of pesticides, inequalities in rural life, the aspirations of people who grow fibers sent around the world, the place of ecological knowledge in modern agriculture, and even the complex threat of suicide. It all begins with a seed.
    URI
    https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/47826
    Keywords
    Social Science; Sociology; Rural; Social Science; Social Science; Anthropology; Cultural & Social
    ISBN
    9780816543427
    Publisher
    University of Arizona Press
    Publisher website
    https://uapress.arizona.edu/
    Publication date and place
    2021
    Imprint
    University of Arizona Press
    Classification
    Rural communities
    Society and culture: general
    Social and cultural anthropology
    Rights
    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode
    • Harvested from KU

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    License

    • If not noted otherwise all contents are available under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

    Credits

    • logo EU
    • This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 683680, 810640, 871069 and 964352.

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