Description
The agrarian myth has played a prominent role in American political identity for centuries. In a simple telling of this narrative, American national strength originates from the self-sufficiency, industriousness and mastery over the land exhibited by the yeoman farmer. This myth idealizes racialized, gendered and colonizing imagery of the relationship between the North American continent and the people who have cultivated crops there for their self-reproduction. Combining a ‘neglected stories’ methodology from legal studies with a decolonizing framework in political studies, I provide an agrarian history of Turtle Island that centres the experience of First Nations, African American and other differently racialized people, particularly women. I begin with contextualising the emergence of the agrarian myth with structures of colonization, white supremacy and patriarchy. Following this, I reconceptualize the values of the American farmer through the authority of named women in Turtle Island history. Finally, I suggest this offers an opportunity to reimagine agrarian values through neglected authorities, where economy is defined by interdependence, care and harmony. I conclude that re-narrating the agrarian myth with stories that have not had the hearing they deserve demonstrates the value of pluralising the study of economic ideas for the crises of the twenty-first century.
