Presentation short abstract

The means through which agroecology gains legitimacy in the U.S. remain under examined. How has U.S. agroecology relied on the state and industrial institutions it seeks to transform for its reproduction and credibility? What knowledge politics make this dependence both possible and invisible?

Presentation long abstract

Agroecology—the science, the practice, and the social movement—is an alternative to industrial agriculture and often described as a “territory in dispute,” positioned between grassroots emancipatory projects and processes of industrial co-optation (Giraldo & Rosset, 2017). While agroecological movements across the world are rooted in place-based and pluriversal ways of knowing, the scientific field in the U.S. has often reproduced Western positivist norms that systematize and reduce the knowledge of campesino, Indigenous, Afro-Indigenous, communities of color, and peasant farmers into scientific techniques. As agroecology gains momentum in the U.S., U.S. scholars increasingly call for coordinated research agendas and institutional recognition to concretize agroecology’s place within national food and agricultural policy. Yet the means through which agroecology gains legitimacy, authority, and credibility remain under examined. How has agroecology in the U.S. relied on the very state and industrial institutions it seeks to transform for its reproduction, legitimacy, and memory? What knowledge politics make this dependence both possible and invisible? Using the pivotal 2023 U.S. Agroecology Summit as a conjunctural case study, this paper traces a materialist account of agroecology’s institutionalization that situates agroecology not outside of, but through, structures of state power, philanthro-capitalism, and industrial agriculture.