Agribusiness "from the gene to the meme": the invasion of the agro virus/totem

Abstract

In 2010, cognizant of the struggle to assign meanings to the agribusiness category, entities linked to large-scale agriculture / agroindustry created an emblem that, free of negative stigmas, was able to synthesize it. Through an aggressive media campaign that ascribes a positive image to the agro sign, the term "business" was suppressed, allowing the prefix (agro) to colonize an endless number of expressions. Behind this artifice we can discern the invention of a relatively structured agro world that displays totemic features, materializing a mobilizing quality of belonging, with specific ways of acting, expressing, and classifying those who inhabit it and attracting those who do not. The article, based on immersion in the Internet, the main medium where the agro totem circulates, describes the linguistic invasion of the prefix and the intensification of the inclusive / totalizing character that its capturing movement implies. This reveals the process of manufacturing an agro cosmology, socialization in which increasingly detaches it from its initial proponents.

Keywords:
agribusiness; agro; agribusiness society; agro world