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The empirical hypothesis that is explored in this article is: if we think with our bodies then we must think about the countryside with our bodies too. Working toward this end, the article begins by briefly reviewing the literature on embodied knowledge. From here, attention turns to the rough, empirical ground of everyday life. Before doing this, however, discussion centres briefly on methods, where the methodological implications of studying the 'more-than-representational' are discussed. The remainder of the article is devoted to examining the findings of fieldwork conducted in rural Iowa. In this discussion, attention centres specifically on how understanding the countryside is an embodied, lived event.

This article draws upon data taken from the following: 18 interviews of Iowa farmers who utilise big data when making farm management decisions; 14 interviews of those engaged within big data industry, those involved in the sale and promotion of large‐scale data acquisition, predictive analytic software, and/or precision agriculture technologies for conventional agriculture applications; and 19 interviews of regional food system entrepreneurs, those looking to create and encourage the adoption of technological platforms that enhance the capacities of regional food systems. A central aim of this article is to help reshape the debate around agro food‐based technologies, from one that asks what technology is to one that looks at what these socio‐technical forms engender. As described, alternative foodscapes are not looking for alternatives to technology but rather to technologies that engender specific effects. The empirical findings are organised around three themes that emerged out of the qualitative interviews. The technological assemblages investigated all exhibited the following three engendering qualities, which are (1) anticipatory, (2) moralising, and (3) a movement that multiplies absent presences. Precisely how these qualities were expressed, however, varied greatly across foodscapes.

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This paper examines sustainable agricultureÕs steady rise as a legitimate farm management system. In doing this, it offers an account of social change that centers on trust and its intersection with networks of knowledge. The argument to follow is informed by the works of Foucault and Latour but moves beyond this literature in important ways. Guided by and building upon earlier conceptual framework first forwarded by Carolan and Bell (2003, Environmental Values 12: 225-245), sustainable agriculture is examined through the lens of a ''phenomenological challenge.'' In doing this, analytic emphasis centers on the interpretative resources of everyday life and the artful act of practice -in other words, on ''the local.'' Research data involving Iowa farmers and agriculture professionals are examined to understand how social relations of trust and knowledge are contested and shaped within and between agricultural social networks and organizational configurations. All of this is meant to further our understanding of what ''sustainable agriculture'' is and is not, who it is, and how these boundaries change over time.Michael S. Carolan is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Colorado State University. His areas of specialization included environmental sociology, sociology of science and knowledge, sociology of food systems and agriculture, and the sociology of risk. Some of his recent writings have focused on the theorizing of nature-society relations, epistemological issues related to agriculture (and sustainable agriculture in particular), and the processes by which knowledge claims are constructed and contested in response to environmental threats.

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While over half of the cropland in the United States is rented, interest in land tenancy within sociological circles has been sporadic at best. In light of the prevalence of rented land in agriculture—particularly in the Midwest—it is vital that further research be conducted to investigate the effect that the rental relationship has upon the various aspects of rural life. This paper takes a step in this direction by examining the social dynamics among landlords, tenants, and agricultural agency professionals to better understand how those dynamics affect the adoption of sustainable agricultural methods on rented land. This paper is theoretically informed by the writings of Pierre Bourdieu, particularly his theory of practice and his concepts of “habitus” and “field.” Toward this end, I argue that multiple (yet overlapping) social fields make up the social body of production agriculture, leading to contestation and field reconstruction. In developing this argument, a strategy for change is presented in accordance with the conceptual postulates of Bourdieu's theory of practice to promote a more widespread utilization of sustainable agricultural practices on rented land.

This paper examines the epistemic barriers to sustainable agriculture, which are those aspects of food production that are not readily revealed by direct perception: such as decreases in rates of soil and nutrient loss, increases in levels of beneficial soil micro‐organisms, and reductions in the amount of chemicals leaching into the water table. While many of sustainable agriculture's most touted benefits cannot easily or immediately be seen by producers, the opposite can be said of the benefits of conventional agriculture: from, for example, weed‐free rows and pest‐free fields to tall stalks, large yields, and commodity uniformity. Yet, while its benefits are readily apparent to many operators, the costs of conventional agricultural production often are not because conventional agriculture partly externalizes those costs to society at large. This paper investigates how the tension between the “visible” and the “nonvisible” plays out in the debate between sustainable and conventional agriculture. It concludes by suggesting potential solutions to overcoming these epistemic barriers, so as to make the epistemologically distant aspects of sustainable (namely, the benefits of) and conventional (namely, the costs of) agriculture more visible to all.