GM Crops and Indigenous Management (Glenn Davis Stone, PI)

My Research

I am an environmental anthropologist who studies food and agriculture systems in South Asia, Eastern Europe, and North America. Food and farming are starting places to ask fundamental questions concerning how we learn about the world around us, how we come to shape the landscapes where we live, and even what impact our culture has on the microscopic worlds within us.

My research has led me to explore the human experiences behind biotechnology and organic agriculture in India, heritage foods and climate change in Bosnia’s mountain gardens, the decisions and aspirations of the next generation of Midwestern farmers, and the influence of food traditions and fermentation on the human microbiome. To study these issues and examine the changing social and ecological worlds where we live, I use a social science toolkit that includes ethnography, spatial analysis, interviews, surveys, ethnobotany, and photography.

Environmental knowledge, and the relationships and affects that continually shape it, grow within a larger political context that includes everything from biotechnology to microbial legislation to ethical supply chains. My work in anthropology uses seeds and microbes as heuristics to explore how we shape and are shaped by the social, political, economic, and ecological worlds around us.

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.