Hemp and the Politics of State Care for Rural America
Date of Award
Fall 2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Anthropology
First Advisor
Dudley, Kathryn
Abstract
This dissertation examines the revival of hemp production after decades of federal prohibition in the United States. Hemp is a crop with multiple end-uses, and the plant is also a variety of cannabis, like marijuana. Until the twentieth century, farmers grew hemp legally in America, mainly for its fiber. However, the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970 classified all cannabis, regardless of variety, as a Schedule 1 drug and, as a result, effectively prohibited commercial hemp production. The legal status of the crop recently changed again, though, with the 2014 and 2018 farm bills. In the 2014 farm bill, Congress redefined hemp as cannabis plants with a concentration of no more than 0.3% delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is the primary psychoactive compound found in marijuana. Building on this shift, the 2018 farm bill then removed hemp from the CSA definition of marijuana and further lifted restrictions on commercially cultivating, processing, and selling hemp and hemp-derived products. The provisions for hemp legalization in the 2018 farm bill were introduced by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and gained notable bipartisan support from Democrats. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and archival research, this dissertation argues that elected representatives framed the revival of domestic hemp production as a form of state care for rural producers. In this dissertation, I chronicle how growers and consumers alike have negotiated this form of state care in contemporary America. I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in New York State and elsewhere on the East Coast between 2018, when Congress de-scheduled hemp from the definition of marijuana under the CSA, to 2022. This ethnographic case study takes a grounded approach to understanding a broader tendency of the contemporary state to shift the burden of care away from the state and back onto citizens, who are then left in the position of taking care of themselves, usually by participating in the free market. To complete this research, I interviewed farmers; extension agents; horticulturists and geneticists; makers of hemp-derived consumer wellness products; and consumers of those wellness products. This dissertation is composed of five chapters, in addition to an introduction and conclusion. Chapter One presents oral history interviews conducted with farmers in upstate New York who were motivated by anxieties about dispossession to take a “gamble” on growing hemp to produce cannabidiol (CBD). CBD is a compound that can be extracted from hemp and incorporated into myriad wellness products. I review the classic literature within anthropology on gambling to understand what American farmers today mean when they describe their work as a “gamble.” Chapter Two examines the story of a West Virginian hemp grower who lost his brother to an opioid-related overdose. This personal loss motivated him to lobby for cannabis reform and grow CBD hemp to make alternative forms of healing possible in his community, in lieu of adequate state care. It is a story about how the state has shifted the burden of care back onto citizens. Chapters Three and Four examine official histories of hemp growing that elected leaders promoted to legitimize and revive hemp cultivation after decades of federal prohibition. I argue that politicians invoked certain periods of hemp growing in American history––namely, the Jeffersonian era and during World War II––not only to legitimize hemp cultivation, but to encourage prospective growers to see themselves as participating in an American tradition of self-reliance, independence, and individualism by growing this crop once again. In Chapter Five, I discuss how boundaries have been drawn between hemp and marijuana, the legal and illegal, and those who belong and those who don’t in a multispecies political community. Hemp legalization was framed as a form of state care for rural producers, but it entailed the ongoing criminalization of marijuana. I argue hemp legalization prioritized care for some at the expense of many. The Conclusion builds on critic Sianne Ngai’s theory of the gimmick. I examine the feelings of suspicion and irritation that hemp-derived CBD wellness products often elicit in consumers. I argue that some consumers seem to take a gamble on these products anyway, even though they elicit what Ngai calls “ugly feelings,” because, like the producers I interviewed, many consumers feel responsible for taking care of their own health and well-being in lieu of meaningful social supports.
Recommended Citation
Fitzgerald, Chelsea, "Hemp and the Politics of State Care for Rural America" (2023). Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations. 1140.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/gsas_dissertations/1140
