Academic writing is not always easy to read. The arguments that researchers make in scholarly articles are part of larger conversations and case studies in our attempt to systematically understand the world. Sometimes we can sound overly critical or negative in the ways that we write, construct arguments, and provide evidence - myself included. This is frustrating for people curious about a topic like sustainable food and agriculture who aren't engaged with these larger academic debates. I hope that these essays and articles can help make some of my work more accessible and interesting to people who want to learn about what environmental anthropologists do and why we do it.
Essays:
Fermented foods sustain both microbiomes and cultural heritage, The Conversation <link>
Bridging disciplines to explore the culture of fermentation, The Microbiologist <link>
Building back bigger or degrowing local food? US alternative food networks and post-corona agrarian economies FocaalBlog <link>
What Problems Does Organic Cotton Solve? Sapiens <link>
Farmers Living and Dying by Cotton Seeds in India Edge Effects <link>
Essential agrarian histories for essential agrarian futures Exertions: Society for the Anthropology of Work <link>
Technological “fixes” aren’t making us happier Salon <link>
For India’s cotton farmers, cooperatives - not technology - offer stability, Salon <link>
Farming For Flavor: Chef Barber heralds cuisine driven by considerations of soil, land, sea, and seed, The Common Reader. <link>
Voices for Biodiversity <link>
Forage! Blog of the Society of Ethnobiology (co-editor) <link>
Scholars Strategy Network (policy briefs) <link>
“Rich aromas and forest light on South Indian coffee farms” Sensorium <link>
Press:
Redesigning agri to align with nature is the need of the hour (The Hans India)
Decolonizing the GMO debate (The Counter)
Joe Biden wants to pour $2 trillion into infrastructure. But is it enough? (Mic.com)
India farming protests resonate with US agriculture (AP news)
Bt cotton: Cultivating farmer distress in India (OffGuardian)
The organic label doesn’t tell the full story (Purdue Newsroom)
How India’s changing cotton sector has led to distress, illnesses, failure (Phys.org)
New crop of nontraditional farmers leading Region’s local-food movement (The Times of Northwest Indiana)
India’s farmers burdened with ‘choice overload’ (Economic Times)
Faced with choice overload, Indian farmers say, 'I'll have what he's having' (EurekAlert)
Farm Food Facts, podcast of the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (Podcast)
Young, hip farmers: Coming to a city near you (EurekAlert)
The new American farmer isn’t who you think (Futurity)
Can you trust the farmer’s voice? (Yale Environmental Review)
Are inner-city food stores exploiting the poor? (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Photography:
Instagram <link>
Natur & Miljø (In Danish) <link>
The Global Lives of Indian Cotton <link>
Interviews:
Bosnian Home Gardens and Foodways with Ashley Glenn and Dr. Andrew Flachs, Foodie Pharmacology Podcast <link>
Contested GM Worldviews, Landscapes Podcast <link>
Pickles, Sauerkraut, and the Gut Microbiome with Dr. Andrew Flachs, Foodie Pharmacology Podcast <link>
Cultivating Knowledge, New Books Network: Environmental Studies <link>
Farmer Protests And Cotton Capitalism In India, A Public Affair <link>
Confounds are Life: An Anthropologist Takes a Closer Look at the Microbiome Earth Eats Podcast <link>
Der Kampf von Baumwollbauern ums Überleben, Rhine-Neckar Zeitung (German) <link>
Down To Earth, Washginton University Class Acts <link>
Eric Wolf Prize Washington University Source <link>