Abstract
Based on fieldwork among a community of sustainable smallholder farmers self-identified as "friendly farmers", this article deals with the promises and paradoxes of a new politics of food and agriculture in Taiwan. I argue that this politics is first and foremost about the articulation of a new rationality of agriculture, which emphasizes not only the economic value of agriculture, but also its multiple functions in fostering environmental stewardship, community livelihood, local food sovereignty, and regional biodiversity. No less impressive is the fact that humans and non-humans from all walks of live have participated in various articulations of this new rationality. On the consumer end, for example, artists and writers help to re-situate agriculture in urban settings, bringing farmers' life worlds from field to table. On the production side, friendly farmers work against the green revolution legacy by choosing not to poison and exterminate the invasive golden apple snails. Instead, they hand pick snails and learn to transform the relationship between rice farmers and snails from one of opposition to that of collaboration. In this process, the open-ended assemblage that these farmers and non-farmers, human and non-human actants create, has collectively expanded the social horizon, cultural significance, and economic viabilities of agriculture in contemporary Taiwan.
Original language | Chinese (Traditional) |
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Journal | 文化研究 (Router: A Journal of Cultural Studies) |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2016 |