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Paper short abstract

This paper explores how the use of zai pits in Mali reshapes agricultural labour. Drawing on STS, it examines how indigenous farming techniques reorganize rather than replace farm work, challenging dominant ideas that link agricultural innovation mainly to automation and labour reduction.

Paper long abstract

Agricultural innovation is increasingly framed through imaginaries of automation, datafication, and “farms without farmers” (Legun et al., 2023; Rotz et al., 2019). Yet in much of the Global South, agricultural futures are shaped by labour-intensive indigenous technologies rather than robotics or AI. This paper interrogates the co-production of agricultural technology and labour through the case of zai pits in Mali, a traditional soil and water conservation technique widely used across the Sahel (Reij et al., 2009; Zougmoré et al., 2014).

Drawing on science and technology studies (STS) and political ecology, I analyze zai pits as a socio-technical assemblage that reorganizes labour, gender relations, and land tenure practices. While often celebrated as a low-cost climate adaptation strategy, zai cultivation requires intensive manual work, digging, composting, and maintaining pits, raising questions about who performs this labour and under what conditions. Adoption is shaped by gendered access to land and resources, as well as household labour hierarchies (Cervigni et al., 2016; Sumberg et al., 2012).

Grounded in my early stages of mixed-methods fieldwork in the Segou region of Mali, this paper examines how agricultural technologies and labour relations are co-produced through indigenous soil restoration practices such as zai pits. Rather than assuming innovation reduces labour, the paper explores how zai adoption reshapes the organization and valuation of farm work. Engaging STS debates on socio-technical imaginaries and agricultural futures, it assesses how labour-intensive indigenous technologies challenge dominant narratives linking agricultural innovation to efficiency, mechanization, and labour displacement.