ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how farming technologies move between places and how they are unpacked and 'grounded' in particular spaces and contexts. It argues that a better understanding of how this process occurs helps to shed light on a source of contestation within agronomy. The chapter discusses two farming technologies that have been at the centre of controversial debates among experts, policy makers and the wider public: the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and drip irrigation. These technologies have been contested partly because important social dimensions have been neglected, which have led to the technologies being configured and appreciated differently in different sites. The different understandings of technology and its role in agricultural development, and the cases of SRI and drip irrigation are discussed to illustrate the practice-based notion of technology and technological change as expressions of situated socio-technical practice. Concepts of inscription and affordance, as developed by anthropologists of technology and Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholars are also used.
