Feminist Agroecology Viewed through the Lens of the Plantationocene

In this article I use the concept of the Plantationocene to discuss contrasting contemporary narratives and practices-namely agroecology versus sustainable intensification. Drawing on long-term research in Malawi, I use the concepts of the plantation imaginary as well as the plot to consider the potential for decolonializing agrarian futures in Africa. I argue that sustainable intensification narratives are a type of plantation imaginary that mobilizes images and ideas of African agrarian knowledge as backward, and African women farmers overburdened, to be saved by modern technology and science. Feminist agroecology can be viewed as a form of plot that allows for new ways of farming and being in communities that is a kind of decolonial thinking.