Paper short abstract:

The quote is from a farmer who cultivates horse gram in the outskirts of Bangalore. The horse represents a view from a margin connected to an evolving but niche sustainability discourse of organic superfoods. The paper will unpack different vulnerabilities connected to this sustainability narrative.

Paper long abstract:

The quote is from a small farmer who once used to grow seasonal vegetables for local markets. He now cultivates horse gram (Macrotyloma uniflorum) in the outskirts of Bangalore. His produce goes to select organic stores in the city that cater to people living in premium localities. The horse is not just an animal here but a nuanced narrative marker. It represents a view from a margin that is connected to an evolving but niche urban discourse of organic superfoods. The paper will use this quote, and others, as ethnographic surrogates to probe three emerging trends. The first is the different vulnerabilities of a shared but tenuous prosperity that is connected to global geoeconomics. Superfoods are a material and a narrative bridge between Bangalore’s IT professionals and small farmers; a bridge that would not exist without a global offshoring economy. The second is how such narratives inject notions of a global ecological and environmental vulnerability into local urban built environments thereby complicating imaginations of rural as local and urban as global. The third is how such mingled imaginations are creating new discourses of sustainable urban future as a ‘cultural fact’.