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Vanishing

Seeds’ Cyclicality

Syracuse University, USA aggold{at}mailbox.syr.edu

To take seeds in South Asia as vanishing objects unites concerns with embodied but equally ineffable religious meanings; with globalized debates over agricultural technology; and with grass roots movements to regenerate sustainable traditions. Using a devotional text recorded at a funeral wake in Rajasthan in 1980, I evoke a world in which reproductive cyclicality is the signal attribute of vanishing. At stake in the briefly incandescent but already obsolete furor over so-called ‘terminator’ or ‘suicide’ seeds is cyclicality’s replacement by permanent loss. With excerpts from both mass-media articles and activists’ reporting, I explore the ways corporate greed is perceived and portrayed as a kind of hypervandalism practiced on tradition. Finally, I consider an image – sprouting seeds – that suggests the opposite of vanishing. Aware of the pitfalls of nostalgia and romanticization, I nevertheless conclude with this germinal wish to highlight seed-saving and propagation practices that – even in the era of modern hyperecologies – allow cyclicality to prevail over termination.

Key Words: agriculture • biotechnology • Hinduism • seeds • South Asia

Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 8, No. 3, 255-272 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/13591835030083002


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