4S 2026 Call for abstracts: Questioning techno-imaginaries of data-driven agriculture
Megan Moss
Kushang Mishra (PhD Candidate, University of Auckland), Ritwick Ghosh (Assistant Professor, NC State University), and I are organising a panel for the 2026 4S Meeting in Toronto from 7th to 10th October 2026, titled: “More data equals more sustainable farming? Questioning techno-imaginaries of data-driven agriculture”
If you are interested in contributing to our panel, please upload your 250-words abstracts by April 30th, 2026, online via this link. We welcome both online and in-person submissions. Let us know if you have any more questions.
Panel Description:
Data-driven agricultural technologies (ag-tech) are part of the techno-social imaginary of modern agriculture - a way to achieve a desirable future of farming. Proponents argue that the ability to sense, aggregate, and analyse agricultural data enhances precision in industrial farming, thereby improving ecological and economic outcomes (Guthman and Butler, 2023). In turn, traditional - smallholder and place-based farming approaches relying on intuition and experiences are portrayed as 'imprecise', “backward” and thereby less productive and/or 'sustainable' (Fairbairn and Kish, 2022). Ironically, data-driven agriculture is often promoted by the same Big Agribusinesses (often in conjunction with Big Tech) that kick-started intensive industrial agriculture in the first place, implicating many of these same actors as both contributors and saviours of unsustainable practices of modern agriculture (Bronoson and Sengers, 2022).
In this panel, we invite papers that problematize the assumption that more data enables improved agriculture. We welcome papers that examine the existing and emergent epistemic actors invested in various forms of quantification in agriculture.
We seek papers that take into account feminist and anti-colonial perspectives, examining how data-driven ag-tech perpetuates intersectional injustice, challenge the technoscientific imaginary promoted by Big Ag and Big Tech, and/or offer alternative technologies and means to empower farmers and farmworkers. While a substantial portion of the STS literature on agri-tech has centred on developments in the Global North, we especially invite work from the Global South, where concepts such as post- or anti-colonial theory may apply.
We ask:
What data-driven technologies, if any, do farmers actually value?
What are the values of farmers that guide their decisions/options?
How does this align/differ from the dominant imaginary being pushed by Big Agribusinesses?
How are new/first-generation farmers impacted? Are they targeted directly as a new market?
School of Philosophical, Historical and Indigenous Studies
I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and acknowledge their continuing connection to land, waters and communities. I pay my respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures; and to Elders past and present.