240116 SE VM5 / VM2 - Working the Land (2020W)

Agriculture is a coproduction of society and nature. Agricultural work, e.g. growing crops or raising cattle, differs from other forms of work in many ways, most importantly due to its natural embedment. Weather, soil fertility and many other natural factors not only have an impact on the choice of crops or animals, but also on the organisation of labour, the application of technology or even the composition of households. At the same time agriculture shares fundamental features with other branches of work, as it is part of larger political and economic systems. Issues like free and un-free labour, gender relations or migration are as relevant in agriculture as they are in all other social and economic spheres. This seminar is primarily based on a recent academic conference on agricultural work (ITH 2019) and an on-going book project. It thus aims at providing the students with both an introduction to various academic approaches to agricultural work and a selection of state-of-the-art research. We discuss topics such as slash-and-burn agriculture in the Amazon, the exploitation of migrant workers in Southeast Asia’s palm oil industry, gender relations in colonial Java’s coffee production, slavery on American cotton plantations, global soy farming or the peasant production of opium in colonial India.