The political ecology of agricultural weeds and weeding

Tensions over weeds’ management and control, derived from weeds’ outstanding biological capabilities, are at the heart of environmental politics at different locales and scales. Yet, political ecology and critical agrarian studies have barely focused on weeds (with remarkable exceptions such as Paul Robbins’ work around Lawn People). Since 2020 I have led a research project that untangles the political ecologies of weeds and weeding in agriculture. In this seminar I will present insights from three studies that are part of that endeavor, and try to answer the following questions: How do human-weeds relations condition agrarian practices, including pesticide use? How does pesticide use reduction change human-weeds relations? What does “the digital” add to weeding technologies? And how do weeds contribute to the digitalization frenzy in agriculture?

Lucía Argüelles Ramos is an environmental social scientist working at the Urban Transformation and Global Change Laboratory (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya). She applies a human and critical geography lens to the field of environmental social science, focusing on how socio-environmental transformations interact with broader political and economic structures, and how people imagine and perceive such relationships. Her current project examines the ecology of weeds and the technical dimensions of weeding technologies and their entanglement with economic-political systems.

Virtual session (via zoom) provided upon registration: https://forms.gle/mERQCfYd2uyTcbNGA