Sacred Grains, Poisonous Foods: Rice, Modernity, and Social-Ecological Disembedding in a South Indian Village

Abstract

This study investigates how changes in the dynamics of rice production, distribution, and consumption that occurred in recent decades have influenced the ways in which different people in and around a rice-cultivating village in Tamil Nadu, India, engage with, perceive, and evaluate rice in different areas of their lives, describe and understand the relationship between rice and their bodies, and engage with and understand different social and ecological actors and entities in relation to rice.