Periodic Reporting for period 4 - ARTEFACT (The Global as Artefact: Understanding the Patterns of Global Political History Through an Anthropology of Knowledge -- The Case of Agriculture in Four Global Systems from the Neolithic to the Present)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-03-01 bis 2022-08-31
ARTEFACT develops a novel perspective on the history of globalisation that is anchored in the entire cultural evolution of humankind. It specifically examines how the development and diffusion of agricultural knowledge-systems have shaped the formation and transformations of global societal and political systems throughout human history.
To do so, ARTEFACT investigates and compares the cultural-political configurations arising out of four major global agricultural revolutions of the Neolithic, ‘medieval’, ‘modern’, and contemporary eras. In each of these four work packages, analysis focuses on the constitution of particular agricultural knowledge-systems and their globalisation through particular networks and pathways of global diffusion and connectivity, and on how they have shaped specific societal, political, and normative structures and processes at a global systemic level.
In addition to its immediate research objectives, ARTEFACT is also creating an academic-institutional space for the development of what the PI has termed ‘Global Epistemics’, a transdisciplinary field of theoretical and empirical inquiry concerned with the global production, diffusion, exchange, and use of human knowledges in human history, across the full spectrum of historical modes of practical and intellectual validation (from ‘prehistorical’ to ‘modern’ paradigms, practices, and technologies and from ‘ancient’ to ‘modern’ science).
The Centre for Global Knowledge Studies (gloknos) was specifically established to serve this wider mission. While gloknos was originally conceived as one of the major outputs of the ARTEFACT project, it now provides an overarching institutional structure within which research conducted within ARTEFACT is brought into fruitful conversations with other projects carried out by, or in collaboration with, gloknos’s 19 current partners and 68 associate members. The Centre supports ARTEFACT’s research, dissemination, and public engagement objectives through its website, academic book series, and social media account, including its YouTube Channel.
To do so, ARTEFACT investigates and compares the cultural-political configurations arising out of four major global agricultural revolutions of the Neolithic, ‘medieval’, ‘modern’, and contemporary eras. In each of these four work packages, analysis focuses on the constitution of particular agricultural knowledge-systems and their globalisation through particular networks and pathways of global diffusion and connectivity, and on how they have shaped specific societal, political, and normative structures and processes at a global systemic level.
In addition to its immediate research objectives, ARTEFACT is also creating an academic-institutional space for the development of what the PI has termed ‘Global Epistemics’, a transdisciplinary field of theoretical and empirical inquiry concerned with the global production, diffusion, exchange, and use of human knowledges in human history, across the full spectrum of historical modes of practical and intellectual validation (from ‘prehistorical’ to ‘modern’ paradigms, practices, and technologies and from ‘ancient’ to ‘modern’ science).
The Centre for Global Knowledge Studies (gloknos) was specifically established to serve this wider mission. While gloknos was originally conceived as one of the major outputs of the ARTEFACT project, it now provides an overarching institutional structure within which research conducted within ARTEFACT is brought into fruitful conversations with other projects carried out by, or in collaboration with, gloknos’s 19 current partners and 68 associate members. The Centre supports ARTEFACT’s research, dissemination, and public engagement objectives through its website, academic book series, and social media account, including its YouTube Channel.
The first stage of the project has focused on establishing the structural conditions required to develop and deploy ARTEFACT’s widely transdisciplinary framework and achieve its overall objectives. The PI was joined by two postdoctoral researchers, specialised in the history of agricultural science and international studies respectively. The team has developed research frameworks, networks, and activities to foster interdisciplinary conversations and initiate collaborative work. Two complementary sub-projects – ARTEFACT-Hybrid and ARTEFACT-Solidarity – were formulated by the postdoctoral researchers to investigate the micro-social dimension of knowledge-production in the field of plant genetics in Britain, and the macro-social impact of global agrarian systems on global solidarity movements.
The second stage of the project has focused on developing the methodological and conceptual framework, and on data collection through archival and ethnographic research.
The team has to date presented a total of 17 conference papers, and gave 4 public lectures, 3 seminars, and 3 invited talks; a chapter is forthcoming in an edited volume, and 4 journal articles have been submitted, in addition to 3 articles published online and several outreach activities. It is now focused on the completion and delivery of individual and collaborative work and publications for the second half of the project: several monographs (currently in progress) and edited collaborative volumes (currently in preparation) with interdisciplinary book series and journals.
The PI has also pursued ARTEFACT’s other objective of developing the transdisciplinary field of ‘Global Epistemics’. Following the launch of the Centre for Global Knowledge Studies in October 2018, the Centre’s website (www.gloknos.ac.uk) went live a few months later. During academic years 2018-19 and 2019-20 the Centre hosted its first two annual lectures series, and organised four annual reading groups, a work-in-progress seminar series, a workshop on ‘Norming Knowledges’, several book launches, public engagement panels in Cambridge, as well as two conference sections (of 15 and 12 panels respectively) at the European International Studies Association conferences in Prague and Sofia.
In August 2019, the Centre organised ARTEFACT's first ‘Open Knowledge Summer School in the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities’ on ‘The Science and Politics of Food in Human History’ (http://gloknos.ac.uk/research/activities/summer-school/food-2019) in collaboration with Jesus College and the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. In October 2019, the PI co-organised an interdisciplinary symposium on Leonardo Da Vinci, with research partners from the Politecnico di Milano. The symposium aimed to explore the social and intellectual foundations and conditions for the emergence, diffusion, and impact of technological innovation, one of ARTEFACT's core themes, and an edited volume is currently in preparation.
In 2019, the PI also created a new academic book series on Global Epistemics, established as a partnership between the gloknos centre and publisher Rowman & Littlefield International (https://www.rowmaninternational.com/our-books/series/global-epistemics#) with the first volume appearing in December 2019. The series serves ARTEFACT’s objective of fostering and disseminating transdisciplinary research on knowledge and its global foundations, processes, and effects. It was launched at the University of Cambridge with a symposium entitled ‘Knowledge Beyond Discipline’, with the participation of several members of the series' International Advisory Board.
Several research networks have been established and external collaborative projects led by ARTEFACT team members are currently in progress. The first project to be finalised is the short-film series on ‘Everyday Objects of Food Security’, produced by the PI in collaboration with the Cambridge Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Global Food Security. The series features 5 interdisciplinary teams of 3 Cambridge academics each, specialising in agricultural science, history, politics, economics, and culture, brought together to communicate the most advanced expertise to the general public in an accessible format. The themes of the first 11 short-films that have now been released in open access on gloknos’s YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZrYE6VVNyHowZvQM4sk0SUwiCXtW_zNU) are wheat, the potato, processed food, and bovine-based agriculture and culinary practices.
The second stage of the project has focused on developing the methodological and conceptual framework, and on data collection through archival and ethnographic research.
The team has to date presented a total of 17 conference papers, and gave 4 public lectures, 3 seminars, and 3 invited talks; a chapter is forthcoming in an edited volume, and 4 journal articles have been submitted, in addition to 3 articles published online and several outreach activities. It is now focused on the completion and delivery of individual and collaborative work and publications for the second half of the project: several monographs (currently in progress) and edited collaborative volumes (currently in preparation) with interdisciplinary book series and journals.
The PI has also pursued ARTEFACT’s other objective of developing the transdisciplinary field of ‘Global Epistemics’. Following the launch of the Centre for Global Knowledge Studies in October 2018, the Centre’s website (www.gloknos.ac.uk) went live a few months later. During academic years 2018-19 and 2019-20 the Centre hosted its first two annual lectures series, and organised four annual reading groups, a work-in-progress seminar series, a workshop on ‘Norming Knowledges’, several book launches, public engagement panels in Cambridge, as well as two conference sections (of 15 and 12 panels respectively) at the European International Studies Association conferences in Prague and Sofia.
In August 2019, the Centre organised ARTEFACT's first ‘Open Knowledge Summer School in the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities’ on ‘The Science and Politics of Food in Human History’ (http://gloknos.ac.uk/research/activities/summer-school/food-2019) in collaboration with Jesus College and the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. In October 2019, the PI co-organised an interdisciplinary symposium on Leonardo Da Vinci, with research partners from the Politecnico di Milano. The symposium aimed to explore the social and intellectual foundations and conditions for the emergence, diffusion, and impact of technological innovation, one of ARTEFACT's core themes, and an edited volume is currently in preparation.
In 2019, the PI also created a new academic book series on Global Epistemics, established as a partnership between the gloknos centre and publisher Rowman & Littlefield International (https://www.rowmaninternational.com/our-books/series/global-epistemics#) with the first volume appearing in December 2019. The series serves ARTEFACT’s objective of fostering and disseminating transdisciplinary research on knowledge and its global foundations, processes, and effects. It was launched at the University of Cambridge with a symposium entitled ‘Knowledge Beyond Discipline’, with the participation of several members of the series' International Advisory Board.
Several research networks have been established and external collaborative projects led by ARTEFACT team members are currently in progress. The first project to be finalised is the short-film series on ‘Everyday Objects of Food Security’, produced by the PI in collaboration with the Cambridge Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Global Food Security. The series features 5 interdisciplinary teams of 3 Cambridge academics each, specialising in agricultural science, history, politics, economics, and culture, brought together to communicate the most advanced expertise to the general public in an accessible format. The themes of the first 11 short-films that have now been released in open access on gloknos’s YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZrYE6VVNyHowZvQM4sk0SUwiCXtW_zNU) are wheat, the potato, processed food, and bovine-based agriculture and culinary practices.
By approaching globalisation from a holistic anthropological perspective anchored in the deep time of agricultural knowledge, ARTEFACT inscribes modern and contemporary phenomena in the full temporality and history of human cultural evolution. This provides a much-needed depth to our understanding of the origins and future developments of today’s globalised world, as well as a common frame of reference to conceptualise our common global history as a cosmopolitan species.