Olivia Ange | Associate Professor of Anthropology

Laboratory of Anthropology of Contemporary Worlds of the Free University of Brussels

After completing a postdoctoral contract at Oxford University, the Quai Branly Museum and Wageningen University, Olivia Angé was appointed associate professor at the Free University of Brussels, where she obtained her doctorate in 2010. His current research explores the multiple valorization of agricultural plants and seeds. While the value of crop varieties is generally assessed in economic terms, Olivia Angé proposes to also consider the ethical commitment that encourages farmers to perpetuate a flourishing agriculture. To do so, she produces cross-species ethnographies of the relationship between seeds and humans – both affective and instrumental – in three agrobiodiversity hotspots: potato cultivation in Peru, maize in Mexico and rice in Laos. Highly present in global markets and recognized by international institutions as holding great promise for ensuring global food security on our damaged planet, these crops are dear to the indigenous peoples who grow and eat them daily. This research program argues that agriculture offers a unique ethnographic object to overcome the current divide between economic and ethical studies of value, thus contributing to the development of a general anthropology of value that is still lacking to this day. .

Keywords

Economic anthropology / Agriculture / Ecology / Ethnography / Botanical drawing, Poetry, Peru / Argentina / Laos