Lara Roeven

Scientists working for governments and international research organizations have historically collected seeds and conserved them off-site to advance crop development for agricultural modernization. Since the late 1990s, the Peruvian state and an international research-for-development organization have initiated potato repatriation projects and support the on-farm conservation of native potato varieties to conserve biocultural heritage in Cusco, Peru. These projects could alter the power relations that have structured native-potato exchange. Using ethnographic, archival, and participatory research, I examine how these projects reshape uneven forms of native-potato exchange among farmers and between farmers and genebanks, and to what effect. This project aims to contribute to the history of agricultural science, scholarship on biocultural heritage, feminist political ecology, and the anthropology of development. Building on multimodal anthropology, I will disseminate the results of this research project through an exhibition that I will co-develop with farmers at a native-potato museum in my field site.