Fraser, Alistair
(2022)
‘You can't eat data’?: Moving beyond the misconfigured innovations of smart farming.
Journal of Rural Studies, 91.
pp. 200-207.
ISSN 0743-0167
Abstract
This paper presents a critical examination of smart farming. I follow other critical analyses in recognizing the
centrality of innovation processes in generating smart farming products, services, arrangements, and problematic
outcomes. I subsequently use insights from critical human geography scholarship on the significance of understanding topological transformations to move beyond interpretations that identify only a narrow range of smart
farming problems, such as a lack of coordination or limited uptake by farmers. Instead, I examine a broader set of
challenges produced by smart farming developments. The overriding concern, I argue, is that smart farming
unfolds via the production of numerous ‘misconfigured innovations.’ Using insights from literature on responsible research and innovation I then probe the stakes of looking beyond the misconfigured innovations of smart
farming and discuss how new technologies might come to play a role in producing emancipatory smart farming. I
pay attention to research on the ‘internet of people,’ which paints a stark new picture of social life generally, and
in particular how rural life might be computed and calculated according to new conceptualizations of sociality
and spatiality.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Additional Information: |
Cite as: Fraser, A. 2022, "‘You can't eat data’?: Moving beyond the misconfigured innovations of smart farming", Journal of rural studies, vol. 91, pp. 200-207. |
| Keywords: |
Smart farming;
Digital revolution;
Precision agriculture;
Agricultural innovation;
Critical data studies;
Critical agrarian studies; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography |
| Item ID: |
17648 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.06.010 |
| Depositing User: |
Alistair Fraser
|
| Date Deposited: |
05 Oct 2023 12:41 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Journal of Rural Studies |
| Publisher: |
Elsevier |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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