Greenhouse Governmentality : Discourses of Rural Development and the Negotiation of Farmer Subjectivity in Jamaica

Abstract

The Jamaican small farmer has long been perceived as backward and technologically inept, and has been severally intervened upon by the state and development agencies aiming to correct this perceived obsolescence. The aggressive promotion of greenhouse farming technology since the early 2000's represents one of the latest of these initiatives. In this thesis, I examine the deployment of greenhouse technology, which has been hailed by some of its promoters as a vehicle for rural development and agricultural modernization. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, I argue that this new greenhouse development model can be read as a form of greenhouse governmentality, aimed at cultivating a modern subjectivity defined by technological sophistication and neoliberal entrepreneurism. The discussion and arguments of the thesis are based on a qualitative analysis of a synthesis of data derived from observation, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussion collected over two summers. My findings suggest that farmers are performing and contesting subjectivity in multiple ways. A number of greenhouse farmers have implemented greenhouses, but have rejected the notion that greenhouse farmers are a special, or new kind of farmer. Conversely, some open field farmers and other greenhouse farmers declare that greenhouse production is transformative. These contestations about how the farmer should be seen play out in the way that the farm is assembled, and I show that farmers have to negotiate a physical terrain that mediates access to water, predisposes them to hurricanes and results in high temperatures in greenhouses based on elevation differences.