Paper: "Surveillance agriculture and peasant autonomy"
*Surveillance agriculture and peasant autonomy** * Glenn Davis Stone First published: 05 January 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12470 Abstract ‘Big Data’ digital technologies are beginning to make inroads into peasant agriculture in the Global South. Of particular importance is the subset of technologies that appropriate agricultural decision-making, here theorized as surveillance agriculture. These technological regimes aspire to not only remove decision-making from the farmer, but eventually to replace the farmer with, for instance, ‘autonomous’ tractors. This paper looks ahead to ask what a technological trajectory that aspires to autonomy for the tractor may portend for autonomy for the peasant farmer. It compares surveillance agriculture to other forms of surveillance capitalism, noting that it shares a will to not only sell products and services but to manipulate behaviour but differs in that the behaviour being manipulated is professional productive behaviour. The paper surveys the vested interests of the entities behind surveillance agriculture and asks how informational relations of production may be changed between farmers and these entities. It then examines the informational relations of production among peasant farmers that may be interdicted by surveillance agriculture, especially the group-level decision-making dynamics that make ‘individual autonomy’ a misnomer. But surveillance agriculture is resolutely individualized, which raises concerns for peasant decision-making autonomy.
Eggià, anche in Italia... Per 72 anni un'azienda italiana ha raccolto le mele a mano. Poi un robot ha cambiato tutto - la Repubblica <https://video.repubblica.it/tecnologia/tech/per-72-anni-un-azienda-italiana-...> Saluti, Alessandro On Sat, 24 Sept 2022 at 07:49, J.C. DE MARTIN <demartin@polito.it> wrote:
*Surveillance agriculture and peasant autonomy*
Glenn Davis Stone
First published: 05 January 2022
https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12470
Abstract
‘Big Data’ digital technologies are beginning to make inroads into peasant agriculture in the Global South. Of particular importance is the subset of technologies that appropriate agricultural decision-making, here theorized as surveillance agriculture. These technological regimes aspire to not only remove decision-making from the farmer, but eventually to replace the farmer with, for instance, ‘autonomous’ tractors. This paper looks ahead to ask what a technological trajectory that aspires to autonomy for the tractor may portend for autonomy for the peasant farmer. It compares surveillance agriculture to other forms of surveillance capitalism, noting that it shares a will to not only sell products and services but to manipulate behaviour but differs in that the behaviour being manipulated is professional productive behaviour. The paper surveys the vested interests of the entities behind surveillance agriculture and asks how informational relations of production may be changed between farmers and these entities. It then examines the informational relations of production among peasant farmers that may be interdicted by surveillance agriculture, especially the group-level decision-making dynamics that make ‘individual autonomy’ a misnomer. But surveillance agriculture is resolutely individualized, which raises concerns for peasant decision-making autonomy.
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participants (2)
-
Alessandro Brolpito -
J.C. DE MARTIN