The 'queen of greens' comes to the tropics: (De)Territorialization of kale's socio-material relations in the Philippines.

• Kale has become a popular superfood leafy green in the Philippines. • The kale assemblage first territorialized as an exclusive network. • The assemblage eventually became accessible to low-income producers and consumers. • The materialiaties of kale help explain its eventual deterritorialization. In the last ten years kale, a Brassica crop common in the West, has been produced and consumed in noticeable quantities in the Philippines. Based on field research and discourse analysis of popular media, and drawing from the literature on socio-material relations, this paper illustrates the complex ways kale has traveled from the United States and assembled in the Philippines. Findings suggest that upon arrival in the Philippines, kale's socio-material relations territorialized around privileged agri-food networks. Its translations as a 'superfood' and the 'queen of greens' have allowed it to become the most expensive vegetable in the Philippines and therefore inaccessible to lower income consumers. Through time, however, kale's socio-material relations deterritorialized to transcend its exclusive network, with small growers now producing the leafy green for self-sustenance. While the nutritional properties of kale have turned it into a high status vegetable, its ability to be grown and propagated in the lowlands of the tropics and its close association with locally available Brassica crops like pechay (Chinese cabbage) have made it receptive to mainstreaming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]