Ontology Matters: The Relational Materiality of Nature and Agro‐Food Studies

Abstract

This paper examines the question of ontological choice in agro‐food studies, and emphasizes that such choices are consequential, determining analytical points of entry, arenas of theory and praxis, and normative positioning. These questions are explored by examining the privileged place of the labour process in the development of agro‐food studies and, as a more specific illustration, in analyses of agro‐biotechnology. It is suggested that the modernist ontological priorities embedded in the unreconstructed conceptualization of the labour process not only have been ignored but also have found an unexamined place in post‐structuralist agrarian political economy. The discussion closes by reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of actor‐network theory as an alternative avenue of critical engagement with the ‘new’ bio‐politics of agro‐food networks.