The recent unprecedented growth of Nicaragua's sugarcane industry has brought promises of more jobs, better health care, and cleaner energy. But these promises have been overshadowed by an epidemic of chronic kidney disease of nontraditional causes (CKDnt). Unknown before the late 1990s, this disease has sickened and killed thousands of sugarcane plantation workers. Scientific studies link the disease to rises in mean average annual temperatures, chronic water scarcity, and the overuse of toxic agrochemicals. CKDnt is now understood as a consequence of global climate change. In The Kidney and the Cane, Alex M. Nading situates this epidemic within a deeper history of sugarcane plantation violence, arguing that CKDnt is not a result of climate change: it is climate change. Outlining a place-based approach to planetary health, Nading follows activists, scientists, and residents in the sugarcane zone wrestling with the consequences of plantation life. Along the way, he raises critical questions about the capacity of corporations and states to care for people and ecosystems; the ability of citizens and experts to regulate toxic substances; and the future of work on a warming planet.
Alex M. Nading is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Cornell University and author of Mosquito Trails: Ecology, Health, and the Politics of Entanglement.
Notes on Words, Names, and Places vii Prologue. Lives Worth Supporting ix Introduction 1 1. Grievance, Ground, and Grace 21 2. Atmospheric Fixes 45 3. Renal Environments 65 4. Toxic Mediation 85 5. Working Conditions 107 6. Plantation Patienthood 129 Conclusion 151 Acknowledgments 159 Notes 163 Bibliography 189 Index 217
"Offering compelling storytelling, fresh insights, and stunning connections, Alex M. Nading outlines the futility of isolating the cause of chronic kidney disease of nontraditional causes (CKDnt) while also showing the limits of fixes based in liberal structures of contestation. He shows how the work involved in keeping bodies and production alive in Nicaragua's sugarcane zone is tantamount to life support; bodies cannot be cured, although their repair remains essential. In this way, CKDnt serves as a bellwether of planetary health." - Julie Guthman, author of (The Problem with Solutions: Why Silicon Valley Can't Hack the Future of Food) "The Kidney and the Cane is an evocative ethnography of life in and around Nicaraguan sugar plantations that also serves as an incisive portrait of planetary health. The examination of contemporary plantation labor allows Alex M. Nading to weave together questions of human and environmental health in entirely novel and often harrowing ways. A fantastic book for anyone interested in labor, agriculture, health care, or the environment." - Kregg Hetherington, author of (The Government of Beans: Regulating Life in the Age of Monocrops)
