Academic

Selected writings

Legun, Katharine (2017) “Desires, Sorted: Massive Modern Packing Lines in an Era of Affective Food Markets.” Journal of Rural Studies, 52: 110-117

Modern packing lines sort apples along precise aesthetic parameters, so that highly homogenous apples appear on supermarket shelves, but differences between supermarkets are increased. As a result, aesthetic politics are removed from the interior of the supermarkets, and instead captured by choice of supermarket.  

Legun, Katharine (2016) “Ever-Redder Apples: How Aesthetics Shape the Biology of Markets.” In Le Heron, Campbell, Marsden and Carolan, (eds.) Biological Economies: Enactive and post-human approaches to agriculture and food. London: Routledge

Redness has had a profound influence on every aspect of the apple industry, from technology, to cultivation practices, to the competitive structure of the industry.

Legun, Katharine (2015). Tiny trees for trendy produce: Dwarfing technologies as assemblage actors in orchard economies. Geoforum, 65, 314-322.

Dwarfing technologies encourage both intensification and customization of the orchard, unexpectedly diverting their effects from a straightforward neoliberal trajectory towards to one that is also collaborative. This collaborative foundation can help us envision a post-neoliberal future.  

Legun, Katharine (2015) “Club apples: a biology of markets built on the social life of variety.” Economy and Society 44(2): 293-315

The biology of apple trees has shaped the rules that govern the apple industry, enabling those biological behaviours to now be mobilised to redesign the industry.

Downloadable: Full dissertation (2013)

More: Katharine Legun CV 2017

Non-Academic

Downloadable: Project Report, Managed Apple Varieties (2016)

Link: Radio interview, Sustainable lens (2014)