The Cultural Politics of Seeds

Allison Carruth
English
UC Los Angeles

Rachel Lee
English and Gender Studies
UC Los Angeles

This symposium was part of the multi-year “Life (Un)Ltd” research project, which addressed the question of what impact recent developments in the biosciences and biotechnology have had on feminist studies. In this year, the group explored the rich connections between food, ecology, propagation, and metabolism. The “Cultural Politics of Seeds” symposium looked at how gender, ethnicity, and race have shaped contemporary cultural and political movements related to seeds. How has global climate in relation to economic and cultural crises affected food systems and place-based heirloom seeds? What sociological, ethnographic, and humanistic methodological tools have we integrated into the study of food culture and food politics and to what ends? To what extent has research by corporations and engineers redefined the ecology of seeds and how have political and artistic forms of resistance intervened?