Freezing Seeds and Making Futures: Endangerment, Hope, Security, and Time in Agrobiodiversity Conservation Practices

Rodney Harrison

doi:10.1111/cuag.12096

Abstract

AbstractThis paper considers the temporal practices inherent in the work of global agrobiodiversity conservation, drawing on ongoing research with the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. It contrasts the distinctive, future‐making practices inherent in the work of ex situ cold seed storage, with the normative, entropic view of the relationship of species diversity with time that arises from the field of biodiversity conservation more generally. These differences point to the value of comparative studies of natural and cultural heritage conservation practices that focus on their politics and ontologies to reveal the heterogeneity of approaches across these fields, and the different worlds they each produce in conserving their endangered objects for the future.

Highlights

The aim of this paper is to consider the future-making practices inherent in the work of global agrobiodiversity conservation, drawing on ongoing research with the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre (NordGen) and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV)
Taking an ontological approach to heritage, which posits that futures are designed and that heritage
Rodney Harrison is Professor of Heritage Studies at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Heritage Priority Area Leadership Fellow. He is the principal investigator of Heritage Futures, an international, comparative, interdisciplinary research program that explores a range of natural and cultural heritage practices as distinctive forms of future-making

Summary

Introduction

The aim of this paper is to consider the future-making practices inherent in the work of global agrobiodiversity conservation, drawing on ongoing research with the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre (NordGen) and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV). Rodney Harrison is Professor of Heritage Studies at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Heritage Priority Area Leadership Fellow. He is the principal investigator of Heritage Futures, an international, comparative, interdisciplinary research program that explores a range of natural and cultural heritage practices as distinctive forms of future-making. Asking critical questions of natural and cultural diversity conservation practices—“when,” “where,” and “what” is the diversity that such practices conserve, for example—reveals this heterogeneity as well as the value of a comparative approach to understanding them

Objectives

Conclusion