Quantitative Research Performing other Worlds: lessons from sustainable agriculture in the Philippines

For those interested in ethical research, quantitative methods are often dismissed as apolitical; as unreflective exercises in ‘mere counting’. If, however, in doing research, we bring into being the very worlds we purport to describe, the question begs: what kinds of worlds might quantitative methods bring into being? Is there space for a reflexive, quantitative research agenda? In this paper, I will discuss an action-based predominantly quantitative research project that aimed to investigate the diverse impacts of sustainable agriculture on small-scale farmers in the Philippines. The study, one of the largest ever undertaken on organic rice production, was consciously designed, not merely to describe, but to perform organic agriculture differently. While most quantitative, and indeed much qualitative, research ignores its performativity, this research was intended to enact a reality of sustainable agriculture as a viable and vital alternative to mainstream, capitalist agriculture.