Saving Seeds, Saving Culture: A Case Study of a Heritage Seed Bank

摘要

This article examines a heritage seed saving organization, the Seed Savers Exchange (SSE), a nonprofit seed bank in northeastern Iowa. To begin, I focus on how SSE conceives of seeds and nature more broadly. From here, the analysis moves to understandhow these "ideas" of nature shape the materiality that is ultimately conserved. Next, the value statements of conservation are analyzed. All conservation policies and practices rest upon normative assumptions about what type of nature ought to be conserved. The final section sets out to detail what some of those value statements are as they relate to SSE, and how they are used to instill within people similar commitments to conservation overall and seed saving in particular. When taken together, thesethree components—(1) conceptions of nature, (2) the materiality being conserved, and (3) the values embedded in all conservation practices—signify what I call the "trialectic of conservation."