Introduction: Seeds and the History of Science

Abstract

As mobile and foundational entities, seeds mimic science and are an appropriate vehicle for examining its defining traits. Ubiquitous as they are, seeds come into the hands of teeming millions and are acted upon, saved, shared, and sold for profit worldwide. They throw up an unusually large cast of characters that are bearers of knowledge or knowledge makers who are located outside the confines of academic elite science. They allow us to understand and acknowledge that knowledge making could be far more deep, widespread, and pervasive than our excessive focus on academic scholar-scientists allows us to see. Seeds straddle the world of multiple historiographies around geography and identity. Overlapping with studies of sedentarism and deep agrarian societies as well as the current controversies over food sovereignty, seeds give access to a wide variety of claims and illuminate several pathways and methodologies for developing historical studies of science.

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