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Paper short abstract:

Smallholder farmers’ adoption of pesticides, with their potential for growth and harm, illuminates the ways in which notions of capitalist growth and ‘flourishing’ intertwine in everyday practices in an East African village.

Paper long abstract:

Pesticide use in Ambuor, a village in western Kenya where I conducted fieldwork with smallholder farmers in 2019, is entangled with visions of growth. Globally circulating flows of pesticides have reached this relatively remote rural area and are seized by smallholder farmers to sustain families, investments, education and consumption. The concept of growth (Dongruok in DhoLuo) calls forth nearly a century of anthropological interpretations of Luo life worlds, although with pesticides as a recent instrument, it is taking a radically different, chemically altered new shape. Yet, the affects and aspirations that drive pesticide use today can be layered onto and rooted in long-standing engagements with a broader concept of growth that views it as more than simple accumulation, but that can be better described as a state of continuous flourishing that includes human and more-than-human communities (Geissler and Prince 2010). I argue that rather than envisioning a simple trajectory here, from holistic and vital ‘Luo growth,’ to the toxic growth associated with chemical industries, modern agriculture, and global capitalism (and then back again through degrowth), these seemingly opposing ideas are closely intertwined in everyday practices. I use pesticides as a vehicle for analysing how different visions of growth impact on life and livelihoods in an East African village, how they interact with each other, and how they are articulated by various actors in this context.