Agri-food sustainability transformation
Almond precarities amidst climate change
How did a drought-tolerant plant become an icon of ecological precarity amidst climate change? This project has involved over ten months of multi-sited fieldwork in Spain, as well as archival research. It traces the multiple pathways by which almonds are depicted as a ‘climate-smart’ food (including in water-intensive plantations, biocultural heritage, organic, and regenerative production). Writing on this work emphasizes the how climate change shapes social-ecological precarities—and how these can both entrench extractive agricultural paradigms or offer paths towards more just, regenerative futures.
Agri-food tech climate solutionism
How is food (and agri-food technology) presented as a climate solution? My research has examined the environmental and social justice implications of agri-food tech environmental solutionism through a focus on plant-based milk and meat. This combines thinking from political ecology, science and technology studies, and critical food studies perspective. My co-authors and I present plant-based proteins as a palatable disruption and question the underlying narrative of inevitable sustainability that drives agri-food tech environmental solutions.
Political ecologies of milk
Is dairy an environmental problem or a solution? This work considers how dairy production and ruminant animals have become simultaneously recognized as environmental problems and solutions. It considers the political economy surrounding dairy’s past and its potential futures. My emerging work in this vein involves collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and fieldwork in East Africa focusing on ‘climate-smart livestock’