Becoming Organic: Nature and Agriculture in the Indian Himalaya

A rich, original study of the social and bureaucratic life of organic quality that challenges assumptions of what organic means Shaila Seshia Galvin examines certified organic agriculture in India’s central Himalayas, revealing how the fraught concept of organic is less a material property of land or its produce than a quality produced in discursive, regulatory, and affective registers. Becoming Organic is a nuanced account of development practice in rural India, as it has unfolded through complex relationships forged among state authorities, private corporations, and new agrarian intermediaries.