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. 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. I think of seeds and microbes as heuristics to explore how we shape and are shaped by the social, political, economic, and ecological worlds around us.
Agrobiodiversity and Community Resilience in Rural Bosnia
In a mountainous region where food security depends on small-scale agricultural production, natural resource collection, and heirloom plant and animal species, Bosnians must now adapt to a changing climate that pulls species up in elevation and depressed economic opportunity that pushes the next generation of land managers abroad to find work. This project uses ethnographic, ethnobotanical, and spatial data to investigate how and to what extent Bosnian agrarian practices and natural resource management shape biodiversity across this landscape.
Biotechnology, Alternative Agriculture, and Agrarian Knowledge in South India
A seed is a choice that cannot be taken back. In Telangana, India, the seemingly simple decision about which seed to plant has taken center stage in a larger debate over two mutually exclusive visions for the future of agriculture: genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and certified organic farming. By asking how farmers learn about their seeds and put that knowledge to use, This project illuminates the local impact of global changes: the slow, persistent dangers of pesticides, inequalities in rural life, the aspirations of people who grow food and fibers sent around the world, the place of ecological knowledge in modern agriculture, and even the complex threat of suicide.
Fermentation and the Microbiome: How our food practices make us who we are
Human bodies teem with trillions of microbes, a complex assemblage of bacteria, eukaryotes, and viruses essential for human health and wellbeing. By consuming probiotic bacteria, humans can modify the microbiome within our guts to reap substantial health benefits ranging from neurological function to immune response. The keys to understanding the interactions between fermentation and the gut microbiome lie in the processes and technologies by which foods are fermented – a cultural as well as biological question of microbial activity, diet, fermentation practices, and local culinary traditions. In this project, we combine research strategies from biology, genetics, and cultural anthropology to investigate how local knowledge and cultural practices associated with fermented food production directly impact microbial communities within ourselves.
Invited talk with North Carolina Statue University Genetic Engineering and Society Center
Understanding and Supporting the New American Farmer
Small and alternative agriculture is making a comeback in the United States as rural communities confront the consequences of consolidation, commodity monoculture, and philosophies of limitless growth. In keeping with the land grant mission of Purdue University, this research investigates farmer decision-making and rural wellbeing among rural Indiana adolescents who take illicit substances, older commercial farmers working in the lower Illinois river valley, and small- to medium-scale farmers who are looking to take advantage of alternative food markets and new technologies to revitalize local food systems in urban areas.
Discussant on Botanical Relations for the virtual PERCS-Waginengin Conviviality conference