The Social Epistemology of Engineered Agricultural Ecologies

This open access collection of new interdisciplinary essays discusses philosophical and social implications of new biotechnologies, methods, and tools used in agriculture from a multispecies perspective. Contributors employ philosophy, sociology, and history of agriculture; agricultural ethics; philosophy of science; and science and technology studies to investigate agricultural research, farming practice, and agricultural policy. Chapters explore and critically discuss how mechanical, chemical, and genetic interventions reshape ecological relationships and agricultural knowledge by relying on case studies of interspecies interactions across different agriculturalized landscapes. These include careful examinations of the nature of dynamic causal relationships across microbial, macrobial, megaflora and faunal organismal communities; exploration of specific coevolved species of pollinators and field crops; and analyses of the epistemic and normative commitments that guide crop management decisions and shape methodological choices leading to the reengineering of land use. These analyses and case studies are intended to provide readers with a variety of conceptual tools through which the use of agricultural technologies might possibly be understood and debated.