Feminist political ecologies of agrarian technologies: knowing the digital differently

Abstract

As digital technologies become increasingly ubiquitous on farms, we need to reconsider relationships between technology and agriculture. Critical agrarian studies offers some analyses of digital technologies, but rarely engages feminist perspectives, risking the repetition of problematic assumptions about scale, subjectivity and power. We draw from the strengths of feminist political ecology to think through three digital technologies–remote sensing satellites, agricultural advice apps, and automatic milking systems–that are transforming agrarian policy, practice, and social life. In doing so, we expand critical agrarian studies’ approach to the digital by attending to situated knowledges, gendered labor, and emotional, intersectional, multi-species relations.