Objecting Toxicity: The Materiality and Morality of Pesticide Use in Argentina

• In Event: Moral Boundaries, Accountability, and the Possibilities of Solidarity

Abstract

Drawing on five years of research and data collected through participant observations and in-depth interviews in Argentina’s rural worlds, this paper analyzes pesticide use in agriculture to bridge the literatures on the sociological study of moralities, the moral economy, and cultural objects and materiality. We ask: how are objects enrolled to assuage moral concerns? How are objects engaged to render environmental risks manageable and toxic exposures acceptable? And what is the influence that objects have over people when it comes to environmental and public health concerns? An ethnographic approach sheds new light on how pesticide users think about their practices. Rather than denying the effects of toxic exposures, farmers and people in rural worlds are ambivalent about them. We also found that objects (like personal protection equipment, pesticide containers and their labels, biological beds, and hydrosensitive cards) enable farmers to cast themselves as responsible pesticide users and technological innovators, while also constraining their actions and shaping their emotional response to toxic hazards. In taking an ethnographic approach to scrutinize the practices, ideas, and feelings underpinning pesticide use, and addressing moral controversies over health risks, environmental hazards, and economic prosperity, the paper seeks to contribute to research on moralities and bring it to bear on environmental issues. It also seeks to contribute to public debates on how the tensions between the economy, the environment, and public health can be approached from a pluralistic perspective.

Author

• Pablo Lapegna, University of Georgia