Social Soils and Chimerical Metabolisms by David Boarder Giles
The metabolic rift “All progress in capitalist agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the worker, but of robbing the soil,” Marx (1976: 637-38)…
Tag: agriculture
How Long Have We Been in the Anthropocene?
For millennia, humans have been altering the Earth—for example, through agricultural adaptations such as these rice terraces near Pokhara, Nepal. Erle C. Ellis This article was originally…
Agricultores Americanos “Made in Brazil”
O Brasil é o segundo maior produtor mundial de soja. Diego Giudice/Getty Images Leia este artigo em espanhol ou inglês. Nos arredores da cidade de Luís Eduardo Magalhães,…
Agricultores Estadounidenses “Made in Brazil”
Brasil es el segundo mayor productor de soya a nivel mundial. Diego Giudice/Getty Images Lea este artículo en inglés o portugués. En las afueras de la ciudad de…
Remaking (Il)licit Landscapes: Layered Histories and Speculative Time in Peru’s War on Drugs
By Allison Kendra, Stanford University § Its leaves burst forth slowly from thin, shrubby branches. Every three months they mature, every three months they are pulled by hard-working…
New Zine on the History of Sanitation
Our zine “Infrastructural Digest” is now completed(!) and 250 copies have just been printed for the opening of the Privy2 demonstration garden. The zine features original artwork and…
U.S. Farmers Made in Brazil
Brazil is the second-largest producer of soybeans globally. Diego Giudice/Getty Images On the outskirts of the town of Luís Eduardo Magalhães, Brazil’s capital of agribusiness in the west…
The Blueberry Wars
In elementary school, the first “robin red-breast” of spring signaled warmer days, colorful flowers, and a promise that the school year wouldn’t last forever. I considered robins m…
Night Soil and the Metabolic Rift
Our latest article is out, which examines the history and cross-cultural management of human waste (or “night soil”) as an agricultural resource. The paper grew out of a…
Review: Organic Sovereignties
Organic Sovereignties. Struggles over Farming in an Age of Free Trade. Guntra A. Aistara. University of Washington Press. 2018. ISBN: 9780295743110. Laura Kihlstrom (University of South Florida) Gunt…
Review: Eating Tomorrow
Wise, Tim (2019) Eating Tomorrow. Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food. New York: The New Press. ISBN 9781620974223 Ellen Messer, Ph.D. (Tufts University…
Privy2
This summer I’ve been working with students and colleagues in the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State to install a demonstration garden, titled “Privy2: Biosolids and You.”…
Review: GMOs Decoded
Krimsky, Sheldon. (2019) GMOs Decoded. A Skeptic’s View of Genetically Modified Foods. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. 161 pp. + 9 pp. References Cited. Forward by Marion Nestle. ISBN…
The Message(s) In the Bottle (or Keg)
Amy Trubek with Elisa Ascione and Manuel Barbato Why am I in Umbria spending time with craft brewers and tasting beers such as an American Red Ale and…
A Story of Us
For the past several years, the graduate students of the Ohio State Department of Anthropology have produced A Story of Us, a podcast that is sponsored by the…
A Plantation inside the Cow: Capitalist Indigestions and the Rumen Microbial Universe
Editorial Note: This post is part of our series highlighting the work of the Anthropology and Environment Society’s 2018 Roy A. Rappaport Prize Finalists. We asked them to outline the…
Review: Against The Grain
James C. Scott Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. ISBN #: 9780300182910 David Sutton Southern Illinois University With his 5…
Pollution Made by Nature: The Circulation of Nitrate Knowledge in Iowa Agriculture and Conservation
Editorial Note: This post is part of our series highlighting the work of the Anthropology and Environment Society’s 2018 Roy A. Rappaport Prize Finalists. We asked them to…
What FoodAnthropology Is Reading Now, January 26, 2019
David Beriss A brief digest of food and nutrition-related items that caught our attention recently. Got items you think we should include? Send links and brief descriptions to…
What’s the Cost of Quinoa?
SAPIENS host Jen Shannon goes on a mission to find out how quinoa travels from farmers’ fields in Huanoquite, Peru, to markets in Lima and the U.S. She…
Sugar Cane in Bolsonaro’s Brazil
When now Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro promised during his campaign to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, putting development ahead of environmental protection, many in the agribusines…
What Happens When We Flush? Public Talk at Whetstone Library
If you want to learn about all the fascinating things central Ohio does with its so-called “human waste,” come to this public talk I’ll be giving at Whetstone…
Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
Vanilla beans are dried in the sun as part of the curing process. George Zhu As the vanilla market opens in northeastern Madagascar this season, some local farmers…
Farmers & Foodies of the Future (FFF)
Update August 2018: This guest post by Robert Seguin on “Farmers and Foodies of the Future” was originally written in August 2015. Three years on, a post by…