The Global Lives of Indian Cotton
The Global Lives of Indian Cotton is an international digital humanities storytelling project to describe the full cotton commodity chain from seed to second-hand clothing. Using Esri Storymap software, this website allows visitors to explore cotton’s ties around the world in the words and photos of the people who create it <link>
Cultivating Knowledge: Biotechnology, Sustainability, and the Human Cost of Cotton Capitalism in India
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.
Available from University of Arizona Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble
"Meticulously following cotton farmers’ lives and decisions in India, this page-turning book should be in the hands of anyone who confronts the puzzle of genetically modified crops and development. By eschewing both the Promethean promise or the apocalyptic bane typically ascribed to GMOs, Flachs has done what few other could, mapping the labyrinth of relationships between hard choices, diverse knowledges, and runaway markets."— Paul Robbins, author of Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are
"In extraordinarily beautiful prose regarding a complex and sometimes heartbreaking issue, Andrew Flachs offers us the deepest look yet available of how the adoption of GM seeds affects communities' aspirations, livelihoods, values and identities in rural areas of the developing world. This book is far more than an academic treatise on cotton economies in South India. It provides us with a lens by which to examine how to determine what kinds of (bio-)technological changes generate more collateral damage than benefits to rural cultures and their traditional agrarian knowledge. At the same time, it re-positions such traditional knowledge and values not as some obsolete nostalgic carryover from the past, but a key element of resilience for communities of the future. Flachs has synthesized his insights into such critically-important issues into a memorable narrative that will linger with readers as a guide to how we deal with biotech revolution, and whether they will really make the world more green, or more filled with the blues."—Gary Paul Nabhan, author of Food from the Radical Center
“Through a richly nuanced ethnography of cotton producers in Telangana, Flachs provides key insights on how farmers accumulate knowledge and make decisions in desperately tough conditions. Taking forward Paul Richard’s idea of ‘agriculture as a performance’ in revealing directions, Flachs offers an innovative synthesis of anthropology and political ecology to cast new light on the role of biotechnology and the meaning of sustainability within rural India.”— Marcus Taylor, author of The Political Ecology of Climate Change Adaptation: Livelihoods, Agrarian Change and the Conflicts of Development
"This wonderfully informative and beautifully written book addresses important and controversial questions—the impact of genetically modified crops and organic farming methods on Indian agriculture and an apparent epidemic of farmer suicides—from the carefully contextualised perspective of the ethnographer, and drawing on perspectives from anthropology and political ecology. Old opposed certainties are seen in a new light as being much less cut-and-dried than embattled opponents assume. New technology is neither good nor bad. What matters most is the context. In particular, the rights and wrongs of agricultural transformation have to be seen in terms of the dynamics of social and political life in farming communities attempting to adapt to changing markets, technologies and environmental circumstances. These transformations depend on the capacity of communities to understand, to learn, to cope, and to impose their own perspectives in the face of challenges set by larger external forces. Sometimes the scope for local social agency is high, and communities prosper—irrespective of the technical regime. In other cases, life chances, learning opportunities and performance spaces are sharply narrowed, and disillusion and despair result. Flachs brings a musician's sensibility to understanding the multiple performative ways in which agricultural technologies are enacted in social life, and why they work for some but fail for others. Far from drawing partisan policy conclusions the book ends by calling for a greater sense of pragmatic solidarity as the key to agrarian technical transformation. Argue less, dance more."—Paul Richards, Emeritus Professor of Technology and Agrarian Development, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
"Cultivating Knowledge updates us on the exigencies facing cotton farmers in the Andhra Telangana region, illuminating the choices available to cotton farmers in the region who are living precariously."—Debarati Sen, author of Everyday Sustainability: Gender Justice and Fair
Press for Cultivating Knowledge
Technological “fixes” aren’t making us happier <Salon>
How India’s changing cotton sector has led to distress, illnesses, failure <Purdue University Newsroom, Phys.org>
For India’s cotton farmers, cooperatives — not technology — offer stability <Salon>
Cotton Complexities in South India <Forage! Blog of the Society of Ethnobiology>
A Seed Is A Choice That Cannot Be Taken Back: Organic Vs. GMO Agricultural Strategies In India <Purdue University College of Liberal Arts>
Flachs Organizes Open Forum On Political Ecology <Purdue University College of Liberal Arts>
Field Notes: Andrew Flachs Shares Insight from India <University of Arizona Press>
Environment and Development in South Indian Organic Agriculture
This project examines how farmers and transnational retailers in South India are creating meaning and effecting environmental change through certified organic agriculture. Certified organic agriculture has emerged as a solution to ecological degradation, sustainable environmental development, and agrarian crisis in South India. However, farmers’ management knowledge, rural communities’ potential for economic growth, and local environmental impact varies considerably between crops and regions. While consumers considering a certified organic product may gloss over differences in agricultural goods or branding, the daily experience of organic farming in different regions, illustrated in this project by Telangana cotton farmers and Andhra Pradesh coffee growers, varies considerably across education, infrastructure, state governance, and climate. By conducting field research with farmers, NGOs, and retailers, this project will examine how organic commodity chains create new development subjects, introduce creative possibilities for farmer agency, interact with state regulators, and ultimately create new possibilities for environmental management. This project also provides one of the first case studies in marketing and regulatory variability between alternative agriculture projects in these newly bifurcated states. Despite differences in crops, climate, infrastructure, and governance, organic agriculture in both contexts can be a means for reduced agrochemical input, biodiversity conservation, improved livelihoods, and economic development. Emphasizing the tensions between international regulations, local commodity networks, and the active role of farmers shaping development programs in their own interests, this research will be of interest to policy-makers and consumers grappling with the transformative potential of alternative agriculture. This project is funded by the American Institute of Indian Studies Senior Fellowship.
Publications related to this project:
Flachs, Andrew, Cristiana Bastos, Deborah Heath, and Sita Venkateswar. 2024. “Introduction to Special Collection: Plant-Anthropo-Genesis: The Co-Production of Plant–People Lifeworlds.” Journal of Ethnobiology. https://doi.org/10.1177/02780771241228068
Flachs, Andrew. 2023. “Cotton Monocultures and Reorganizing Socioecological Life in Telangana, India” Journal of Ethnobiology. https://doi.org/10.1177/02780771231221645
Flachs, Andrew 2022. “Degrowing alternative agriculture: institutions and aspirations as sustainability metrics for small farmers in Bosnia and India.“ Sustainability Science.
Flachs, Andrew. 2021. “Charisma and agrarian crisis: Authority and legitimacy at multiple scales for rural development.” Journal of Rural Studies, 88(1):97-107.
Flachs, Andrew and Sreenu Panuganti. 2020. “Organic aspirations and in South India.” Economic Anthropology, 7(1):38-50.
Playing Development Roles: The Political Ecology of Performance in South Asian Agricultural Development
Because of the diversity of intervention programs and the innovative ways in which stakeholders throughout supply chains interact and exert their agency, the relationship between subjective transformation and particular socioeconomic reward structures in development remains under-theorized. By exploring the ways in which farmers respond to incentives and constraints within development programs as well as the way in which farmers’ own agendas and values come to shape the reality of development, this workshop seeks to connect the complicated forces shaping farmer identity to direct environmental management. In doing so, it aims to better describe a political ecology of development roles in South Asia and refocus attention on socially mediated environmental management. This workshop will provide a venue for historians, anthropologists, geographers, and economists from South Asia, Europe, and North America to discuss new empirical and theoretical research in development and performance across the agrarian landscape. We intend to publish an edited volume or special issue journal based on the papers and discussions inspired by this workshop. This project is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and took place April 27-29, 2017 in Heidelberg, Germany.
Publications related to this project:
Selected papers from this workshop were published in a special section of the Journal of Political Ecology , including contributions from Paul Richards, Glenn Davis Stone, Dominic Glover, Harro Maat, Andrew Flachs, Debarati Sen, and Daniel Münster.
Flachs, Andrew and Paul Richards. 2018. “Playing development roles: the political ecology of performance in agricultural development.” Journal of Political Ecology, 25(1):638-646.
Flachs, Andrew. 2018. “Development roles: contingency and performance in alternative agriculture in Telangana, India.” Journal of Political Ecology, 25(1):716-731.
Cultivating Knowledge: The Production and Adaptation of Knowledge on Organic and GM Cotton Farms in Telangana, India
This research examines seemingly small decisions, such as the particular seeds farmers plant, to investigate how people manage food and agriculture systems and what role larger institutions play in guiding their behavior. For this project I combined quantitative demographic, economic, and biodiversity data with ethnographic detail to develop the first comprehensive study comparing the social politics of biotechnology and alternative agriculture on farms in South India. Designing my research at the intersection of anthropology and environmental studies, I ask how new technologies become viable, sustainable elements in daily life. While others have argued that these technologies are simply ‘better mousetraps’ for modern farmers, I showed that the success of genetically modified (GM) or organic seeds instead depend on farmers’ capacity to build nuanced local knowledge about their seeds. This project has been funded in part by the National Geographic Young Explorer's Grant, the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, the Lynne Cooper Harvey Fellowship, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the John Templeton Foundation.
Publications related to this project:
Flachs, Andrew. 2021. “The political ecology of genetically modified and organic cotton in India as agents of agrarian transformation.” In The Political Ecology of Industrial Crops. Abubakari Ahmed and Alexandros Gasparatos, eds. Pp 153-172. New York: Routledge.
Flachs, Andrew. 2019. “Planting and Performing: Anxiety, Aspiration, and “Scripts” in Telangana Cotton Farming.” American Anthropologist, 121(1):48-61.
Flachs, Andrew. 2019 “The Factish in the Field: An Anthropological Inquiry of Genetically Modified Seeds and Yields as Beings.” Science and Technology Studies, 32(3):26-43.
Flachs, Andrew. 2018. “Listing at Multiple Stages: Using Key Informants and Walking Probes to Generate Efficient and Accurate Lists During Larger Surveys.” Field Methods, 30(3):175-190.
Flachs, Andrew. 2017. “ Show Farmers: Transformative Sentiment and Performance in Organic Agricultural Development in South India.” Culture, Agriculture, Food, and Environment, 39(1):25-34.
Flachs, Andrew. 2016. “The Economic Botany of Organic Cotton Farms in Telangana, India.” Journal of Ethnobiology, 36(3):683-713.
Flachs, Andrew. 2016. Cultivating Knowledge: The Production and Adaptation of Knowledge on Organic and GM Cotton Farms in Telangana, India. Doctoral Dissertation, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri.
Flachs, Andrew. 2016. “Redefining Success: The Political Ecology of Genetically Modified and Organic Cotton as Solutions to Agrarian Crisis.” Journal of Political Ecology, 23(1):49-70.
Flachs, Andrew. 2015 “Persistent Agrobiodiversity on Genetically Modified Cotton Farms in Telangana, India.” Journal of Ethnobiology, 35(2):406-426.
GM Crops and Indigenous Management (Glenn Davis Stone, PI)
In collaboration with Glenn Davis Stone and Dominic Glover, this project investigates the impacts of genetically modified crops on indigenous knowledge in India and the Philippines. Rather than take a simplistic view of GM crops and development, this research focuses on how farmers are managing these crops within their farming system. This project is funded by the John Templeton Foundation (Glenn Davis Stone, PI).
Publications related to this research:
Flachs, Andrew and Glenn Davis Stone. 2019. “Farmer Knowledge Across the Commodification Spectrum in Telangana, India.” Journal of Agrarian Change, 19(4):614-634.
Stone, Glenn Davis and Andrew Flachs. 2017. “The Ox Fall Down: Path Breaking and Technology Treadmills in Indian Cotton Agriculture.” The Journal of Peasant Studies, 45(7):1272-1296.
Flachs, Andrew, Glenn Davis Stone, and Christopher Shaffer. 2017. “Mapping Knowledge: GIS as a Tool for Spatial Modeling of Patterns of Warangal Cotton Seed Popularity and Farmer Decision-Making.” Human Ecology, 45(2):143-159.
Stone, Glenn Davis and Andrew Flachs. 2015. “Seeking Sustainability for Smallholders: Bt Cotton in India.” In Africa's future...can biosciences contribute?, David Bennett and Patrick Mitton, eds. Pp. 119-128. Cambridge, Banson/B4FA.
Stone, Glenn Davis and Andrew Flachs. 2014 “The Problem with the Farmer’s Voice.” Agriculture and Human Values, 31(4):649-653.
Stone, Glenn Davis, Andrew Flachs, and Chrsitine Diepenbrock. 2014 “Rhythms of the Herd: Long Term Dynamics in Seed Choice by Indian Farmers.” Technology in Society. 36(1): 26-38.