Doctoral Dissertation Research: Rivers of Milk: Dairy Science, Environment, and Technopolitics of Food Infrastructures

博士论文研究：牛奶之河：乳制品科学、环境和食品基础设施的技术政治

• 批准号: 2240875
• 负责人: Projit Mukharji
• 金额: $ 1.58万
• 依托单位: University of Pennsylvania
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-04-01 至 2023-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2240875&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Rivers; Milk

Over the last several decades human taste for and dependence on dairy has become a key area of concern in the debates about animal justice and the environment. This doctoral dissertation project analyses universalist accounts of cattle-led environmental degradation by highlighting how different actors–scientific experts and lay breeders, dairy farmers and milk traders, colonial bureaucrats and postcolonial politicians - conceptualized and connected dairy development with economic and political projects in colonial and post-colonial contexts between 1880-1970. These years constituted the peak of the British colonial military’s experiments with organizing the milk supply, and they also mark the beginning of the world’s largest dairy development program. By investigating knowledge production about cattle, fodder, and milk, this project asks three broad questions: 1) what values, politics and concerns drove scientific experiments and public anxiety with purity, productivity, and the health of milk and the livestock 2) what role did the politics of race and caste play in the material organization of dairy infrastructures? and finally, 3) how did dairy development projects affect the cattle, cattle herders and pastoralists, and urban and rural environments?This project applies historical and qualitative methods to archival material. Sources include popular and scientific journals and outlets that focused on animal husbandry, dairying, and agriculture as well as archival sources that focus on policies related to dairying and dairy development in the twentieth century. By foregrounding knowledge production about milk and cattle as a highly contested political and social process, this project connects critical scholarship on science and technology with histories of food, environment, caste, and race.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

在过去的几十年里，人类对乳制品的口味和依赖已成为有关动物正义和环境的辩论中关注的一个关键领域，该博士论文项目通过强调不同的参与者如何分析牛导致的环境退化的普遍主义观点。科学专家和非专业饲养员、奶农和牛奶贸易商、殖民地官僚和后殖民政治家——在 1880 年至 1970 年间将乳制品发展与殖民和后殖民背景下的经济和政治项目联系起来。英国殖民军队组织牛奶供应的实验，也标志着世界上最大的乳制品发展计划的开始。通过调查有关牛、饲料和牛奶的知识生产，该项目提出了三个广泛的问题：1）什么是价值观、政治。对牛奶和牲畜的纯度、生产力和健康的担忧推动了科学实验和公众焦虑。2）种族和种姓政治在乳制品基础设施的物质组织中发挥了什么作用，最后，3）乳制品的发展如何？项目影响牛，牛牧民和牧民以及城市和农村环境？该项目对档案材料应用历史和定性方法，来源包括重点关注畜牧业、乳制品和农业的流行和科学期刊和媒体，以及重点关注与相关政策的档案来源。该项目将有关牛奶和牛的知识生产作为一个备受争议的政治和社会过程，将科学技术的重要学术成果与食品、环境、种姓和种族的历史联系起来。通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，NSF 的法定使命被认为值得支持。