ABSTRACT
This chapter examines agrobiodiversity as the product of an aesthetic order. In so doing, it seeks to explain the management of life in agriculture and food as part of a value achieving process laden with potential, in this case useful for addressing priority concerns over maternal and child nutrition in the highland Andes. In prioritizing concrete experience over abstract instrumental science, the authors seek to shed light on how three interventions based on the mobilization of agrobiodiversity in Bolivia, Perú, and Ecuador reveal a commonly neglected or under-utilized potential for enabling novel human-nonhuman interactions and resulting material effects (e.g., N-fixation, food, fiber, wealth, and health) and subjective affects (flavor, taste, identity, and fulfilment) for purposes of rural development. Each case led to re-orderings that, while not always predictable or manageable, when in the hands of situated and empowered users, arguably contributed to the possibility of more regenerative agriculture, food, and nutrition.
