In my talk, I will update Winner's classic discussion of the mechanization of tomato production in "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" I argue that the politics of tomatoes are more intentional than Winner argued, with deep links to racism and the accumulation of capitalism.
Long abstract:
In Science and Technology Studies (STS), the politics of tomatoes has been made famous by Langdon Winner’s 1980 article “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” Only fifteen pages long, it is one of the most influential texts in STS and is typically taught in every Intro to STS class. In my paper, I will do three things. First, by drawing on recent scholarship, I contextualize the mechanization of tomato production in racist politics of the "Bracero Program" in the US between the 1940s and 1960s. Second, I build on Mann and Dickinson's "Obstacles to Capitalist Development" to argue that the mechanization of tomato production can be understood in the context of technological developments that are used to make nature accessible to the accumulation of capital. Finally, I give a brief overview of some of the important technological developments in tomato production that have taken place since the 1970s. I highlight how developments like drip irrigation, controlled environment agriculture, and, in recent years, AI and robotics, further dissolve the barriers posed by the biophysical reality of agriculture. Intentional or not, these technological "solutions" are developed to control environmental factors that pose obstacles to the accumulation of capital.