ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on "deep empiricism" by way of ethnographic detail to analyze abstractions of soy farming. Beginning with the lived realities of transnational soy farmers' migration, the chapter considers the expansion of soy frontiers in the Brazilian Cerrado, personal narratives of crisis, social values of work and farming, and the material realities of soy production. It focuses on a group of migrant farmers from North America involved in the ongoing processes of crisis and boom, with the questions: how one become a transnational farmer and what transformations and continuities does this beget. The chapter sees transnationalization of farming as the creation of entirely new subjects, rather than the simple adoption or continuation of farming practices and living styles. In order to understand the on-the-ground experiences of this transformation, the chapter focuses on the interests, values, and agency of actors involved in soy production in order to make visible the interfaces or the spaces where actors encounter other lifeworlds.
