At the Edge of the Pampas

Rachel Cypher is an anthropologist whose work examines how people inhabit worlds under conditions of ecological and social rupture. She is co-editor of Rubber Boots Methods for the Anthropocene: Doing Fieldwork in Multispecies Worlds.

"As farmers push their social and environmental worlds to the brink in Argentine soy fields, Cypher asks us to consider the power of affect in determining who farms and what grows. Through rich ethnography, Cypher shows how the desire to hold on to farming as a way of life allows the agricultural frontier to continually expand with consequences for tropical forests, smallholders, agribusiness, and rural communities across the Global South."—Andrew Flachs, author of Feeding the World as if People Mattered"Cypher's engrossing book tells the story of Argentina's agricultural frontier, where the paradoxes of life amid the soy boom unfold with breathtaking clarity. Through her vivid recounting, readers will feel the excitement of another successful harvest, the anguish of a harvest lost to the ever-encroaching threats to Argentina's fragile soy ecosystem, and the attendant sacrifices and rationalizations that mark everyday life."—Geneva Smith, Dartmouth College