Article ID: CBB613873290

Underground Inspirations: Tuber Sciences and Their Histories (2021)

unapi

Taking tuber sciences and their histories as a case study, this essay hinges on materiality, both as a condition shaping thing–human relations and as a vector for producing knowledge and generating theory. It explores how people have made knowledge about some very earthy, solid, rooted, underground things: namely, tuber crops—yams, sweet or white potatoes, manioc, and taro. Unlike the waving seas of wheat and other grand global crops that sustained the rise of our modern world, tubers were almost invisible in history of science and technology until very recently. Anthropologists, however, have been thinking with tubers, recording how humans understand and work with them, and building theories about materiality and society from these observations for over a century—and they continue to be a vibrant source of inspiration to anthropologists of materiality today. The essay discusses the contexts in which different ways of knowing-through-tubers, vernacular and academic, have been formulated and asks what inspiration these tuber tales might offer to historians of science.

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Authors & Contributors
Aleksandar Shopov
Anja Timmermann
Josh England
Vincenzo Matera
Gabriella D'Agostino
Lourdusamy, John Bosco
Concepts
Agriculture
Economic botany; plant cultivation; horticulture
Anthropology and historical methods
Science and society
Science and economics
Farmers
Time Periods
19th century
Ancient
18th century
20th century, early
20th century
17th century
Places
United States
London (England)
Greece
Europe
Istanbul (Turkey)
England
Institutions
United States. Dept. of Agriculture
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