Political ecology of plant disease
Cumulative vulnerabilities
This project views plant disease as inseparable from climate change and from political economic dynamics surrounding agrarian change more broadly. Examining experiences managing plant pathogens offers a lens to understanding cumulative vulnerabilities, where the effects of plant pathogens and their management intersect with deeper processes of rural depopulation and climate change.
Pathogen politics
This project takes a science and technology studies approach to examine how the pathogen is being managed, including whose knowledge counts in decisions about rural futures. It employs Q-methodology to understand diverse perspectives, their roots in various identities, and where there may be productive overlap. The aim is to make plant pathogen management more inclusive and equitable.
Multisensory ethnography
Participatory Photovoice workshops engage rural communities in understanding visceral experiences with landscape transformation and imagining possible futures for living with plant disease. Multisensory ethnography involves landscape walks with community members before, during, and after tree removal.
Focus on Xylella fastidiosa in Spain
Considered by the EU to be the most serious plant pathogen outbreak since grape phylloxera devastated the wine industry in the 19th century.
Existing plant disease research focuses on ecology, epidemiology, and economic losses. This overlooks social questions such as what makes farmers vulnerable to plant disease and what enables them to adapt. Without this knowledge, it is difficult to develop equitable solutions to manage plant disease. Funded by EU-Horizon, this project (2025-2029) is envisioned as a multi-sited ethnography of Xylella fastidiosa. It builds on pilot fieldwork conducted in 2019 and 2022 and focuses on an ongoing outbreak of Xylella in Spain’s Balleares and Vallencian Community. To reframe plant disease as a more-than-human phenomenon, the project emphasizes multispecies and multisensory ethnography. Conceptually, the study is rooted in political ecology, science and technology studies, and the environmental humanities.