{"product_id":"the-government-of-beans-9781478006893","title":"The Government of Beans","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Government of Beans\u003c\/i\u003e is about the rough edges of environmental regulation, where tenuous state power and blunt governmental instruments encounter ecological destruction and social injustice. At the turn of the twenty-first century, Paraguay was undergoing dramatic economic, political, and environmental change due to a boom in the global demand for soybeans. Although the country''s massive new soy monocrop brought wealth, it also brought deforestation, biodiversity loss, rising inequality, and violence. Kregg Hetherington traces well-meaning attempts by bureaucrats and activists to regulate the destructive force of monocrops that resulted in the discovery that the tools of modern government are at best inadequate to deal with the complex harms of modern agriculture and at worst exacerbate them. The book simultaneously tells a local story of people, plants, and government; a regional story of the rise and fall of Latin America''s new left; and a story of the Anthropocene writ l\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Government of Beans\u003c\/i\u003e is an exhilarating read. Kregg Hetherington offers a brilliant theorization of agripolitics built up from the ground up through close observation of how dreams, schemes, laws and a host of small things (beans, trucks, measuring sticks, hedges, insects, traffic jams) transform lives and create new worlds. Anyone tempted by the idea that governing the Anthropocene means finding the right policy, or the right technology, or even the right kind of state should read this book.” -- Tania Murray Li, author of * Land’s End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier *\u003cbr\u003e“Stimulating, thought-provoking, and beautifully written, \u003ci\u003eThe Government of Beans\u003c\/i\u003e explores what may be politically possible in the face of the overwhelming power of agribusiness and an ineffective and frequently corrupt government. This important and creative book brings histories, dreams, hopes, horrors, ambivalences, and practices to light.” -- John Law, author of * After Method: Mess in Social Science Research *\u003cbr\u003e“This well-written and important book is simultaneously a political and economic history of Paraguay, particularly its eastern part, and a depiction of a short historical period of radical politics on the part of the state.” -- Annika Rabo * Anthropology Book Forum *\u003cbr\u003e“Hetherington’s book \u003ci\u003eThe Government of Beans\u003c\/i\u003e offers a riveting (yes, riveting) account of the expansion of agroindustry and soy production in [Paraguay].... [His] book offers a particularly timely cautionary tale about the possibilities and limits of government....” -- María Elena García * Public Books *\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Government of Beans\u003c\/i\u003e offers a cautionary tale about the risks of using the regulatory instruments of the state to limit the violence of the state.... [It] offer[s] a refined interdisciplinary lens to study the intricate workings of soy and power in South America.” -- Daniela A. Marini * AAG Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003e“Recent state-society research in rural Argentina has produced important works on the politics of the GM soy boom.... Profoundly ethnographic and conceptually sophisticated, \u003ci\u003eThe Government of Beans\u003c\/i\u003e is an excellent contribution to this literature from a Paraguayan perspective. This fine study deserves a wide interdisciplinary readership.” -- Ezquerro-Cañete * Journal of Peasant Studies *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments  vii\u003cbr\u003e Introduction. Governing the Anthropocene  1\u003cbr\u003e Part I. A Cast of Characters  19\u003cbr\u003e 1. The Accidental Monocrop  23\u003cbr\u003e 2. Killer Soy  32\u003cbr\u003e 3. The Absent State  43\u003cbr\u003e 4. The Living Barrier  53\u003cbr\u003e 5. The Plant Health Service  62\u003cbr\u003e 6. The Vast Tofu Conspiracy  70\u003cbr\u003e Part II. An Experiment in Government  81\u003cbr\u003e 7. Capturing the Civil Service  85\u003cbr\u003e 8. Citizen Participation  96\u003cbr\u003e 9. Regulation by Denunciation  106\u003cbr\u003e 10. Citation, Sample, and Parallel States  120\u003cbr\u003e 11. Measurement as Tactical Sovereignty  130\u003cbr\u003e 12. A Massacre Where the Army Used to Be  144\u003cbr\u003e Part III. Agribiopolitics  157\u003cbr\u003e 13. Plant Health and Human Health  163\u003cbr\u003e 14. A Philosophy of Life  174\u003cbr\u003e 15. Cotton, Welfare, and Genocide  184\u003cbr\u003e 16. Immunizing Welfare  194\u003cbr\u003e 17. Dummy Huts and the Labor of Killing  203\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion. Remains of Experiments Past  216\u003cbr\u003e Notes  223\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography  257\u003cbr\u003e Index 277","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49408981041495,"sku":"9781478006893","price":20.69,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781478006893.jpg?v=1730504953","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-government-of-beans-9781478006893","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}