Care of the Species: Races of Corn and the Science of Plant Biodiversity

Care of the Species examines infrastructures of care—labs and gardens in Spain and Mexico—where plant scientists grapple with the complexities of evolution and domestication. John Hartigan Jr. With geneticists working on maize, Hartigan deploys Foucault’s concept of care of the self to analyze how domesticated species are augmented by an afterlife of data. uses ethnography to access the expertise of botanists and others engaged with cultivating biodiversity, providing various entry points for understanding plants in the world around us. In the botanical gardens of Spain, Care of the Species explores seed banks, herbariums, and living collections, depicting the range of ways people interact with botanical knowledge. Across the globe, an expanding circle of care is encompassing a growing number of species through efforts targeting biodiversity, profoundly revising the line between humans and nonhumans. He begins by tracing the historical emergence of race through practices of care on nonhumans, showing how this history informs current thinking about conservation. In tackling the racial dimension of efforts to go “beyond the human,” this book r

About the AuthorJohn Hartigan Jr. is professor of anthropology and director of the Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies at the University of Texas, Austin. He is author of Aesop’s Anthropology: A Multispecies Approach (Minnesota, 2015).

He is author of Aesop’s Anthropology: A Multispecies Approach (Minnesota, 2015).. is professor of anthropology and director of the Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies at the University of Texas, Austin. John Hartigan Jr