The Government of Beans

“The Government of Beans is an exhilarating read. Kregg Hetherington offers a brilliant theorization of agripolitics built up from the ground up through close observation of how dreams, schemes, laws and a host of small things (beans, trucks, measuring sticks, hedges, insects, traffic jams) transform lives and create new worlds. Anyone tempted by the idea that governing the Anthropocene means finding the right policy, or the right technology, or even the right kind of state should read this book.” - Tania Murray Li, author of Land’s End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier

“Stimulating, thought-provoking, and beautifully written, The Government of Beans explores what may be politically possible in the face of the overwhelming power of agribusiness and an ineffective and frequently corrupt government. This important and creative book brings histories, dreams, hopes, horrors, ambivalences, and practices to light.” - John Law, author of After Method: Mess in Social Science Research

“This well-written and important book is simultaneously a political and economic history of Paraguay, particularly its eastern part, and a depiction of a short historical period of radical politics on the part of the state.” - Annika Rabo, Anthropology Book Forum

“Hetherington’s book The Government of Beans offers a riveting (yes, riveting) account of the expansion of agroindustry and soy production in [Paraguay].... [His] book offers a particularly timely cautionary tale about the possibilities and limits of government....” - María Elena García, Public Books

“The Government of Beans offers a cautionary tale about the risks of using the regulatory instruments of the state to limit the violence of the state.... [It] offer[s] a refined interdisciplinary lens to study the intricate workings of soy and power in South America.” - Daniela A. Marini, AAG Review of Books

“Recent state-society research in rural Argentina has produced important works on the politics of the GM soy boom.... Profoundly ethnographic and conceptually sophisticated, The Government of Beans is an excellent contribution to this literature from a Paraguayan perspective. This fine study deserves a wide interdisciplinary readership.” - Ezquerro-Cañete, Journal of Peasant Studies

"Hetherington’s interpretative approaches offer conceptual novelty for political ecology and science and technology studies. The government of beans is thus one of the seminal works that may introduce anthropological thinking about the Anthropocene (or the Plantationocene) to a much broader readership."
  - Desirée Kumpf, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute