Materiality and the politics of seeds in the global expansion of quinoa

Abstract

In recent years, quinoa (traditionally grown in South America) has been imagined as a food crop that addresses the world’s most pressing problems: climate change, water scarcity, food insecurity, malnutrition, and economic inequality. Valued for being nutritionally exceptional and resistant to several agronomic stresses, quinoa has attracted the attention of consumers, researchers, and development agencies. This paper focuses on the World Quinoa Congress and other international gatherings of experts (plant scientists, quinoa farmers, social scientists, development practitioners, and entrepreneurs) who produce and share knowledge about quinoa’s cultivation, production, consumption, and diversification. I examine how various actors materialize quinoa through different ways of conceptualizing seeds, property, and knowledge. In some cases, quinoa is part of a larger socioecological system, while in others, seeds are disembedded from their geographical context and studied in terms of their efficiency and yields. I explore the convergence and divergence of knowledges that accompany quinoa’s globalization, shedding light on the frictions, conflicting priorities, opportunities, and questions that arise in spaces of knowledge creation and exchange.