Botanical Sprays and Local Ways: An Examination of Participatory Agroecological Pest Management Research in Northern Malawi

Ph.D. Exit Seminar in the Graduate Field of Development Studies

Abstract

This dissertation follows the evolution, outcomes, and social context shaping participatory research on homemade insecticidal plant extracts, otherwise known as botanical sprays. The project was embedded within a long-term, farmer-led initiative that advances agroecological knowledge and practice among smallholders in northern and central Malawi. The non-profit that leads this initiative – Soils Food and Healthy Communities – facilitates a farmer-to-farmer network that partners with allied researchers, extension workers, and other non-profit practitioners to conduct participatory research, training events, and community dialogues. This study emerged in response to network members’ interest in rebuilding and strengthening practical knowledge of botanical sprays. Drawing on the fields of landscape and human ecology, political agroecology, and feminist political ecology, it discusses the material and social outcomes of participatory agroecological experimentation and considers how they are entangled with household and community knowledge politics. The dissertation also offers insight into how farmers perceive and prioritize alternative paradigms for pest management. Taken together, these chapters reflect on the messiness and potential for participatory praxis and farmer-to-farmer approaches to enable food sovereign futures rooted in situated smallholder knowledge. It argues that scaling up agroecology requires participatory and transdisciplinary approaches that attend to the social processes of building situated knowledge, rather than to practice use alone.

About the candidate

Stephanie Enloe graduated from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa with a B.A. in International Studies. After living in Tanzania from 2010 through 2011, she returned to her hometown of Ames, Iowa to complete her M.S. in Sustainable Agriculture from Iowa State University. Her thesis research, conducted under the guidance of Dr. Lisa Schulte Moore and Dr. John Tyndall, evaluated how social dynamics within a multi-stakeholder watershed management initiative in north-central Iowa influenced farmer perceptions and actions on water quality management practices. Stephanie then worked as a Policy Associate for the Center for Rural Affairs, where she advocated for State and Federal policy support for agricultural conservation and rural development. In 2017, Stephanie began the PhD program in Development Sociology at Cornell University. Her PhD research was conducted in close collaboration with Soils Food and Healthy Communities – a farmer-led non-profit in Malawi. Stephanie is the Director of Programming for the Women Food and Agriculture Network – an organization working to advance gender and ecological justice in U.S. food and agricultural systems.