MANURE POLITICS: MAKING SPACE FOR MODERN AGRICULTURE IN THE LANDSCAPES OF EVERYDAY LIFE

This thesis focuses on the presence of livestock waste in the Raccoon River watershed in northwest Iowa. In particular, I examine the liquefied mixture of feces and urine that pools underneath these animals in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that is collected and then sold to local farmers. These farmers then use this waste as manure for spreading onto crop fields. The process through which hog waste re-enters the agricultural economy as “manure” relies on interwoven networks of power that continually produce the landscape and conceal the everyday, lived experience of this waste when it is spread near homes and communities. Relying on fieldwork completed in 2015, this thesis examines how seemingly small, bureaucratic interventions produce specific discourses that have spatial implications in everyday life and can change our understanding of waste, landscape, rurality, food, and farming.Master of Art