Fwd: Paper on Violent sustainability by NRAS member Nikhit Agrawal

[rohit.2691]

Full paper here

https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/sea2.12333

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Richa Kumar <ric...@gmail.com>
Date: Monday, 18 November 2024 at 08:11:55 UTC+5:30
Subject: Paper on Violent sustainability by NRAS member Nikhit Agrawal
To: agrarian-ru...@googlegroups.com <agrarian-ru...@googlegroups.com>

Dear all,

Please see this excellent paper by NRAS member (and State of Rural and Agrarian India Report 2020 co-author) Nikhit Agrawal. He may be contacted at nik...@ucla.edu for obtaining access to the full paper. 

Best,

Richa

"Violent sustainability: Blitzscale and counteraccounting in an Indian agtech start-up" published in Economic Anthropology.

In recent years, there has been rapid digitalization in agriculture, with India seeing a significant rise in agricultural technology (agtech) start-ups. Many of these start-ups promise to address the climate crisis by promoting the economic and ecological sustainability of agriculture through market-driven business models. Using institutional ethnography and counteraccounting at an Indian agtech start-up, this article illuminates social, economic, and ecological relationships that are obscured by one firm's accounting practices. It shows how, despite tech-entrepreneurs intending to help farmers, violence remains built into the design and effects of rapidly scaled-up (“blitzscaled”) sustainability programs. The article proposes violent sustainability as a concept to highlight the unintended harm caused to potential beneficiaries due to structural violence underlying tech-entrepreneurialism and inherent design flaws in blitzscaled sustainability programs. In doing so, it challenges the normalization and monetization of recurrent failures prevalent in tech-entrepreneurial ventures.

https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/sea2.12333