Peer-Reviewed Research

(for a more complete list see the cv)

Books

• 2022 The Agricultural Dilemma (How Not to Feed the World). Routledge, Oxford.
• 1996 Settlement Ecology. Univ. of Arizona Press.

Selected Articles by Topic

  Eugenics

• 2025 Black Swans and Safety Nets: Food Aid, Dispersal, and Eugenics in Corbin Hollow. Southern Anthropologist forthcoming (with R. Robinson).

  Political ecology of agriculture

• 2025 GM crops and the Jevons Paradox: Induced Innovation, Systemic Effects, and Net Pesticide Increases from Pesticide-Decreasing Crops. Journal of Agrarian Change (with A. Flachs and 2 others).
• 2023 The Knowledge Politics of Genome Editing in Africa. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene 11 (1): 00143 (with J. Rock and 6 others).
• 2022 Surveillance Agriculture and Peasant Autonomy. Journal of Agrarian Change 2022:1-24.
• 2019 New Histories of the Indian Green Revolution. Geographical Journal 185(2):243-250.  Related blog, “Historians rethink the Green Revolution”.
• 2017 The Ox Fall Down: Path Breaking and Technology Treadmills in Indian Cotton Agriculture. Journal of Peasant Studies 45:1272-1296 (with A. Flachs).

  Indigenous knowledge

• 2025 Skill Talk: The Struggle over Agricultural Decision-Making. Outlook on Agriculture 54(2).
• 2019 Farmer Knowledge Across the Commodification Spectrum: Rice, Cotton, and Vegetables in Telangana. Journal of Agrarian Change 19(4):614-634  (with A.Flachs). 
• 2016 Towards a General Theory of Agricultural Knowledge Production: Environmental, Social and Didactic Learning. Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment 38(1):5-17.
• 2014 The Problem with the Farmers Voice. Agriculture & Human Values 45: 1272-1296 (with A. Flachs).
• 2013 Rhythms of the Herd: Long Term Dynamics in Seed Choice by Indian Farmers. Technology in Society 36:26-38. (with A. Flachs and C. Diepenbrock).
• 2007 The Birth and Death of Traditional Knowledge: Paradoxical Effects of Biotechnology in India. In Biodiversity and the Law: Intellectual Property, Biotechnology and Traditional Knowledge, edited by C. McManis, pp. 207-238. Earthscan.
• 2007 Knowledge. In Encyclopedia od Environment and Society, edited by P. Robbins, pp. 985-989 (with R. d'Avignon). 

  Population

• 2021 Malthusian Thought. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology.
• 2001 Malthus, Agribusiness, and the Death of the Peasantry. Current Anthropology 42(4):575-578.

  Food studies

• 2017 Heirloom Rice in Ifugao: An ‘Anti-commodity’ in the Process of Commodification. Journal of Peasant Studies (with D. Glover).
• 2016 Disembedding Grain: Golden Rice, the Green Revolution, and Heirloom Seeds in the Philippines. Agriculture & Human Values 34(1):87-102 (with D. Glover).
• 2013 The Trials of Genetically Modified Food: Bt Eggplant and Ayurvedic Medicine in India. Food Culture & Society 16:21-42 (with C. Kudlu).

  CRISPR genome editing

• 2023 Beyond the Genome: Genetically Modified Crops in Africa and the Implications for Genome Editing. Development and Change (with J. Rock and 6 others).
• 2023 Siloed Discourses: A Year-long Study of Twitter Engagement on the use of CRISPR in Food and Agriculture. New Genetics and Society 42(1) (with L. Crossland-Marr and 7 others)
• 2022 Governing Agricultural Biotechnologies in the United States, the UK, and Germany: A Trans-Decadal Study of Regulatory Cultures. Science, Technology and Human Values (with A. Ely and 6 others)
• 2017 Dreading CRISPR: GMO’s, Honest Brokers, and Mertonian Transgressions. Geographical Review, 187:584-591.

  Biotechnology in general

• 2021 Genetically Modified Crops. Oxford Research Encyclopedia.
• 2020 Golden Rice and technology adoption theory. Technology in Society 60:101227 (with D. Glover and S. Kim).
• 2010 Anthropology of Genetically Modified Crops. Annual Review of Anthropology 39:381-400.
• 2005 A Science of the Gray: Malthus, Marx, and the Ethics of Studying Crop Biotechnology. In Embedding Ethics: Shifting Boundaries of the Anthropological Profession, ed. L. Meskell and P. Pels, pp. 197-217. Berg.
• 2002 Both Sides Now: Fallacies in the Genetic-Modification Wars, Implications for Developing Countries, and Anthropological Perspectives. Current Anthropology 43(4):611-630.

  Biotechnology in India

• 2020 Long-Term Impacts of Bt Cotton in India. Nature Plants: 6:188-196 (with K.R. Kranthi).
• 2015 Biotechnology, Schismogenesis and the Demise of Uncertainty. J. of Law & Policy 47:29-49.
• 2011 Field vs. Farm in Warangal: Bt Cotton, Higher Yields, and Larger Questions. World Development 39(3):387-398.
• 2007 Agricultural Deskilling and the Spread of Genetically Modified Cotton in Warangal. Current Anthropology 48:67-103. For discussion, see: Ganesh and Brahma bow to a new god (Salon.com).

  Science studies of agriculture and biotechnology

• 2025 Citizens as Consumers: Styles of Reasoning about Agricultural Biotechnologies and Publics. Science as Culture, in press (with K. Fischer and 5 others).
• 2025 What Does Public Opinion Research Tell Us about Societal Reactions to Genetic Technologies in Agriculture? A critical review of the field. Science as Culture, in press (with K. Fischer and 5 others).
• 2018 Agriculture as Spectacle. Journal of Political Ecology df(1).
• 2014 Biosecurity in the Age of Genetic Engineering. In Bioinsecurity and Human Vulnerability, edited by Nancy Chen and Lesley Sharp. SAR Press.
• 2012 Constructing Facts: Bt Cotton Narratives in India. Econ & Political Weekly 47(38):62-70.
• 2011 Genetically Modified Crops and the Food Crisis: Discourse and Material Impacts. Development in Practice 21:509-516 (with D. Glover). 
• 2011 Contradictions in the Last Mile: Suicide, Culture, and E-Agriculture in Rural India. Science, Technology and Human Values36:759-790.

  Theories of agricultural change

• 2001 Theory of the Square Chicken: Advances in Agricultural Intensification Theory. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 42:163-180.
• 2001 The Causes of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change -- Moving Beyond the Myths. Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions 11:5–13 (with B.L. Turner and 24 others). 
• 1999  Non-Boserupian Ecology and Agricultural Risk: Ethnic Politics and Land Control in the Arid Southwest. American Anthropologist 101:113-128 (with C. Downum). (Winner, Gordon Willey award)
• 1997 Predatory Sedentism: Intimidation and Intensification in the Nigerian Savanna. Human Ecology df:223-242.

  Kofyar intensive, sustainable agriculture

• 1990 Seasonality, Labor Scheduling and Agricultural Intensification in the Nigerian Savanna. American Anthropologist 92:7-23 (with R. Netting and M.P. Stone).
• 1998 Keeping the Home Fires Burning: The Changed Nature of Householding in the Kofyar Homeland. Human Ecology 26:239-265.
• 1993 Agricultural Expansion, Intensification, and Market Participation among the Kofyar, Jos Plateau, Nigeria. In Population growth and agricultural change in Africa, edited by B.L. Turner II, G. Hyden and R. Kates, pp. 206-249. Univ of Florida Press.
• 1989 Kofyar Cash Cropping: Choice and Change in Indigenous Agricultural Development. Human Ecology 17:299-319 (with R. Netting and M.P. Stone)
• 1995 The Sexual Division of Labor in Kofyar Agriculture. American Ethnologist 22:165-186 (with M.P. Stone and R. Netting)

  Ethnoarchaeology

• 1999 Non-Boserupian Ecology and Agricultural Risk: Ethnic Politics and Land Control in the Arid Southwest. American Anthropologist 101:113-128 (with C. Downum).
• 1992 Social Distance, Spatial Relations, and Agricultural Production among the Kofyar of Namu District, Plateau State, Nigeria. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 11:152-172.
• 1991 Settlement Ethnoarchaeology: Changing Patterns among the Kofyar of Nigeria. Expedition 33:16-23.
• 1994 Agricultural Intensification and Perimetrics: Ethnoarchaeological Evidence from Nigeria. Current Anthropology 35:317-324.

Research Support

  National Science Foundation

• Pilot Comparative Research: Adoption of Digital Agricultural Technologies, 2020-23.
• Biotechnology and the Political Ecology of Information in Andhra Pradesh, 2003-05
• Scholar's Award for Methodological Training: Crop Biotechnology for Developing Countries, 2000-01.
• Historical Ecology on a Nigerian Frontier: Controlled Comparison of Tiv and Kofyar Systems of Settlement, 1994-95.
• The Kofyar Restudy: An Analysis of Changing Man-Land Relationships in Traditional and Frontier Cultural Ecosystems in West Africa, 1983-85.

PI on advisee grants

• Comparative Study of Skilling Institutions in U.S. Alternative Agriculture (B. Jones), 2018.
• Impacts of Public Policy on Rural Social Organization (M. Abel), 2020.
• Ayurvedic Commodity Chains in Kerala (C. Kudlu),  2007-09.
• Supplement:  Biotechnology and Political Ecology of Information in Andhra Pradesh (R. d'Avignon), 2005-06.

  Wenner-Gren Foundation

• Genetically Modified Crops in Developing Nations: Multi-Sited Ethnography of the Effects on Agricultural Sustainability, 2000-02.
• Tiv and Kofyar Agrarian Settlement Systems: A Comparative Study in Historical Ecology, 1994-96.
• Ethnoarchaeology of Kofyar Settlement Systems, 1983-84.

  International Grants

• European Commission: Genome Editing and Agricultural Policy, Practice and Public Perceptions (one of 6 PI’s) 2019-21.
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: Digital Agriculture and Surveillance Capitalism (one of 3 PI’s) 2021-25.

  Other Major Grants and Fellowships

• Templeton Foundation: Genetically Modified Crops and Indigenous Management in India and the Philippines, 2013-15.
• John S. Guggenheim Fellowship, 2016-17.
• National Endowment for Humanities Fellowship, 2002.
• Wenner-Gren Foundation: Richard C. Hunt Fellowship, 1993.
• School for Advanced Research: Weatherhead Fellowship, 1987-88.

  University Support

• Washington Univ, St. Louis.
• Columbia Univ, New York.
• Univ of Arizona, Tucson.
• Univ of Arizona, Tucson.