Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
forms of knowledge to better manage organisms and integrate their
ecological relationships in farming systems. This chapter describes
how these actors are configured into networks, and how partnerships
in turn shape the roles and relationships of those who participate in
them.
Much conventional social-science research has described agricultural
extension as a simple, linear process: scientists develop expert knowledge
and technologies, and then convey these fixed objects to uniformly recep-
tive growers. This indeed may be appropriate for explaining “Transfer of
Technology” activities, such as introducing pesticides, but it does not
reflect the complex social learning processes of extending agroecology. 3
Single factor explanations of grower or scientist behavior must give way
to more sophisticated understanding of their social networks, in much
the same way that more systematic, ecological frameworks replace scien-
tific research investigating single organisms. To interpret the extension
activities of agroecological partnerships, we have to consider the role of
all participating actors and the dynamics of their relationships.
Network analysis emphasizes the importance of the dynamic and shift-
ing relationships between people, nature, and technological objects.
A network approach shifts the focus from scale to connectivity, and
conveys the multiple dimensions of relationships between people, insti-
tutions, nature, and technologies that ultimately shape change on the
agricultural landscape. Bruno Latour, Michel Callon, and John Law
developed actor-network theory as an STS methodology precisely
because existing scholarship did not adequately explain the network
dynamics of human and non-human relationships, especially when they
involve scientific learning, scientific controversies, or environmental
resource conflicts. 4
Neva Hassanein's work on Wisconsin's intentional rotational grazing
was the first to specifically address the role of networks in extending
alternative agriculture. 5 She analyzed thirty networks of local farmers
and graziers, and using sociological methodologies, she interpreted these
as a social movement. Wisconsin's networks have a strong grassroots,
populist flavor, even as they collaborate with CIAS, and many of them
embrace alternative agricultural science (including organic) and markets
simultaneously (table 6.1). In contrast, California's agroecological
partnerships, with a few exceptions, cannot be described as a grassroots
 
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