A Place of Care Woven by Natural Farming

As an Example of a Living Care/Continuous Employment Support Type B Office that Conducts Agriculture-welfare Collaboration

Abstract

In this paper, I focus on a living care/employment continuation support type B business establishments which provides services for people with comparably more diverse needs based on their disabilities. My field is specifically a support office that cooperates with local agriculture and practices fertilizer-free and pesticide-free natural farming to utilize the power of living organisms. This paper aims to relativize the unique activities found there through recent Anthropological theories of care, based on how it is practiced, and to depict its diversity. In doing so, I will use Multispecies Anthropology to look at the potential for multiple types of associations in the field of care. The fields of natural farming develop a diverse array of associations, including not only humans, such as supporters and people with disabilities, but also cultivated plants and other plants, the soil in which they grow, and the insects and animals that live there. I capture care in the context of these relationships among various beings. Then, I clarify the process of how care practices and the relationships within these practices are born or disappear in response to the issues caused by supporters' beliefs.