Tuberous Worlds

A fascinating examination of “tuberous associations”—the economies, politics, and ecologies enabled by human-tuber interactions The world is much more tuberous than most people know. From the millions of smallholder peasants cultivating tuber plants to the teams of scientists mapping potato genomic information to the industrial manufacturers selecting the best varieties for producing French fries, life unfolds in a tuber-enabled environment. This book describes the many different forms of “tuberous association”—the patterns of production, kinship, collaboration, resistance, feeding, and care that arise from and are made possible by tuberous partnerships. Tubers are vital partners, or allies, that support life within autonomous collectives and at the same time are entwined in the extractive practices of colonization, land enclosure, and plantation—facts that reveal the complexity and contingency of vegetal politics. To explore this complexity, the contributors to this book consider an array of tuberous bodies, such as cassava, taro, yam, potato, and sweet potato, to draw out the subtleties and textures of human-tuber companionship in all their startling diversity. By considering tubers not only as a “product” or “staple,” but also as partners, kin, and ancestors—as lifeforms grafted to our own—the authors argue for a nuanced understanding of tuberous politics, economies, and ecologies.