Trading on Terroir
In collaboration with Stefan Norgaard.
We conceptually interrogate the Specialized Agrarian Industrial District (SAID), a bounded zone producing specialized agricultural products that resist international divisions of capital and labor. Three critical characteristics enable SAIDs: (1) regulatory and institutional arrangements, including regulations and specific “denominations of origin,” allowing producers to develop and exchange localized knowledges; (2) landed property regimes and regimes’ recombinant legacies of agrarian reform, collective ownership, protected nature, or cultural/ touristic heritage; (3) specific terroir, or biophysical geographies, with climate, topography, and soil features suited for thematerial properties of specific commodities. Our research engages four commodities and geographies: cheese in the Franche-Comté, France and Minas-Gerais, Brazil; and alcohol in South Africa’s Cape (wine) and Jalisco, Mexico(mezcal). Alcohol and cheese’s material and biophysical properties lend themselves to SAIDs’ political/institutional construction.
This project originated in the seminar “Emergent Urbanizations: New Territories of Urban/Agrarian Transformation in The Global South” led by Sai Balakrishnan and Neil Brenner at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. To know more about our research and to read our paper go to The Urban Theory Lab.
In collaboration with Stefan Norgaard.
We conceptually interrogate the Specialized Agrarian Industrial District (SAID), a bounded zone producing specialized agricultural products that resist international divisions of capital and labor. Three critical characteristics enable SAIDs: (1) regulatory and institutional arrangements, including regulations and specific “denominations of origin,” allowing producers to develop and exchange localized knowledges; (2) landed property regimes and regimes’ recombinant legacies of agrarian reform, collective ownership, protected nature, or cultural/ touristic heritage; (3) specific terroir, or biophysical geographies, with climate, topography, and soil features suited for thematerial properties of specific commodities. Our research engages four commodities and geographies: cheese in the Franche-Comté, France and Minas-Gerais, Brazil; and alcohol in South Africa’s Cape (wine) and Jalisco, Mexico(mezcal). Alcohol and cheese’s material and biophysical properties lend themselves to SAIDs’ political/institutional construction.
This project originated in the seminar “Emergent Urbanizations: New Territories of Urban/Agrarian Transformation in The Global South” led by Sai Balakrishnan and Neil Brenner at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. To know more about our research and to read our paper go to The Urban Theory Lab.
2019-ongoing | Research
![Stellenbosch, South Africa]()
![Wine in South Africa]()
![Fromage Comté in France]()
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![Early histories timeline]()
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![Serra da Canastra, Brazil]()
![Post-1980's timeline]()
![Mezcal in Mexico]()
![Queijo Canastra in Brazil]()
![Zapotitlán de Vadillo, Mexico]()
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![Denomination of origin labels]()
![Jura, France]()
