The Ambiguous Ecologies of Agri-Alternatives: Exploring the Calculus of Social Reproduction in Rural India

Abstract

This paper advances scholarship on agri-alternatives by probing the gap between romanticised narratives of how alternative farming transitions ought to be and the actual practices farmers enact in their fields. Focusing on moments when such alternatives encounter on-the-ground realities, we propose ambiguous ecologies as a lens to explore the various elements shaping farmers' decisions and their complex dynamics. Centering social reproduction, we argue that transitions to agri-alternatives are contested processes whereby farmers renegotiate productive and reproductive agrarian relations amidst uneven risks. Drawing on ethnographic insights from India, we contribute to feminist theorisation on the calculus guiding farmers' practices in two ways. First, by positing that ecologies and their materialities are key to how farmers navigate their engagement with agri-alternatives, and second, by showing how ambiguous ecologies work as sites of agency where farmers make intimate calculations to construct liveable socio-ecological relations against the grain of industrialised farming regimes.