Enacting “Technology” and Everything Else: Gendered Practices and the System of Crop Intensification

<p>This dissertation is a qualitative examination of the functioning of a rural</p> <p>development project in a Himalayan region of India, with a special focus on a</p> <p>particular project activity centred around an agro-ecological method of crop</p> <p>production, the System of Crop Intensification (SCI). Environmental changes and</p> <p>disasters along with rapid transformations in the rural economy in Uttarakhand has</p> <p>engendered a renewed interest in non-mainstream farming practices. However, the</p> <p>success and/or failure rates of adoption of new agricultural methods and technologies</p> <p>remains a poorly understood phenomenon. Studies of adoption rates tend to focus on</p> <p>the aspects of the technology itself, rather than its social life.</p> <p>Drawing from science, technology and society studies, agrarian studies, scholarship</p> <p>on rural livelihoods, political ecology, gender studies and practice theory, this</p> <p>research study examines how the discourse of SCI is articulated differently in</p> <p>different spaces, and the implications of these variations for extension and adoption</p> <p>practices. Beginning with the construction of knowledge at the institutional level, the</p> <p>research study first traces who articulates what, and how and why this process takes</p> <p>place, in both the national and regional contexts. Second, it examines how</p> <p>contestations in discourse translate into mediated practices and outcomes. Finally, the</p> <p>study focuses on the embodied identities of field development workers and the</p> <p>inhibitory as well as emancipatory effects of the structuring elements of the</p> <p>organisation. The study finds that SCI, and rural development projects more broadly,</p> <p>are co-produced both discursively and in practice, by project planners, development</p> <p>workers, and beneficiaries.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Social Sciences

Year

2017

Author dc:creator

• Koshy, Natasha Susan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Susan S. Wadley

• Agrarian Studies
• Anthropology of Development
• Gender Studies
• Science
• Technology and Society
• Social and Behavioral Sciences

Repository record dc:identifier

https://surface.syr.edu/etd/801

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:surface.syr.edu:etd-1802