Political Ecology of Agriculture Flashcards
(152 cards)
1
Q
What was significant about the 2008 food crisis?
A
It was the first GLOBAL food crisis
2
Q
What did the 2008 food crisis do to global agriculture?
A
- Shut down global food commodity markets
- Caused resistance and export bans to protect stocks and raise prices
- Coincided (roughly) with the 2008-09 financial crisis
FIND CITATION
3
Q
What report was published in the wake of the 2008 global food crisis?
A
The Foresight Report (2011)
4
Q
What did the Foresight report 2011 propose regarding food security?
A
- More pressures in the next 40 (now 30) years
- Rising global population will increase demand for food
- As countries develop people will become wealthier
- Also supply side changes needed re climate change
.
5
Q
Why is the Foresight Report (2011) duplicit?
A
The discourse does not address the inequalities of demand (taken as aggregate demand) and distribution, as well as power structures in the Global economy
6
Q
What is the received wisdom surrounding agriculture in the Global South?
(2 pts)
A
1) Smallholder and pastoral agriculture are inappropriate
2) ‘Big is best’ (e.g., World Bank 2008)
7
Q
What academic publication has endorsed large-scale agriculture? Why is it endorsed?
A
Collier and Durcon 2009
- Large scale farms are the only means of econ growth (link development too)
- Smallholder agriculture = mismanagement and too risky (ironic!)
8
Q
What is the difference between high modernism and low modernism?
A
High modernism = Large scale technology, simplification (Grapes of Wrath tractors)
- e.g. Scott 1998 Seeing like a State
Low modernism = bottom-up, implementing technology from below
9
Q
What is the difference between Malthusian and neo-Malthusian epistemologies?
A
Malthusian = suffering is inevitable with scarcity (population will be ‘checked’)
Neo-Malthusian = Intervention needed to curtail population growth
10
Q
What was Ester Boserup’s contribution to population and development?
A
Societies adapt and develop new technologies to avoid a Malthusian catastrophe
(Boserup 1965)
11
Q
What is a further critique of Boserup (1965)?
A
Although good at disproving Malthusian thinking, Boserup did not consider the uneven uptake and provisioning of technology
Who decides?
12
Q
What are practically finite resources?
A
Those which are not quickly (geologically speaking) replaced, e.g., oil
Differs to physically infinite resources which are replenished (e.g., plants and trees)
13
Q
How did fertilisers affect social metabolism?
A
From a loop to a metabolic rift
Fertilisers needed to replenish the nutrients sucked out of the soil
14
Q
What was arguably the most significant invention of the 20th century?
A
The Haber Process
15
Q
What was one of the underlying aims of Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution?
A
To prove capitalism was better than communism
- See political appetites
- ‘Green’ has dual meaning (nature and opposite of a Red Revolution
16
Q
What was the idea behind Rostow’s Stages of Economic Growth (1960)?
A
- Opposed to Communism
- A teleology, setting a path to follow
- Need to develop the Global South and allow people to move to cities
Highlights the significance of ideas and ideologies
17
Q
Did the Green Revolution work?
(covered more in Pol App)
A
It did produce more food overall
- Yields went up and prices came down globally
- Arguably, by these measures, a success in SE Asia
NOT in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Too focussed on growing food, not relations of production or distribution
- conglomerate take-over
The failure that topples all our success?
18
Q
What is the issue with philanthropists helping smallholders?
A
They try to make them investable, financialising their land and labour (issues re risk)
(Watts and Scales 2020)
19
Q
What has financialization of agriculture done to the teleology of rural development?
A
Moved towards low-modernist, philanthrocapitalism
e.g., B+M Gates and ‘New’ Green Revolution
20
Q
What is the issue with technological solutions?
A
- “Render Technical” (Li 2007)
- Anti-political, framed in ways which ignore the underlying politics of technological ‘improvement’ (Ferguson 1994)
21
Q
What are peasants?
A
- A specific term in cultural ecology / anthropology
- Those who produce food for their own sustenance
22
Q
What is cultural ecology? How does it differ to political ecology?
A
- Cultural ecology = how people use the land and environment (CITATION?)
- PE = how these relations are contested and uneven, winners and losers
23
Q
Why are Peasants vilified?
A
- Produce own food for sustenance
- Not productive
- A barrier to capital and accumulation
- Needs primitive accumulation
- Seen as backward
Scott 1976 good source
24
Q
How are peasants being commodified?
A
“The smallholder entrepreneur” (Gates 2008)
- Intro tech, make productive
25
In what ways does global agriculture relate to the North?
- Arguably as important as South
- Affects South with modes of production
- Also consumer changes (and efficacy of these...)
26
What resistances have taken place in retaliation to commodification of peasants and smallholders?
La Viva Compesina, Mexico (CITATION?)
- Seeking to re-establish food sovereignty among peasants
- Opposed to high-mod and entrepreneurial perspectives
Part of “peasant way” retaliation (Bernstein 2014)
27
What are the different types of power associated with PE? What is the historiography of power in PE?
Early PE (1980s) = Power focus in political economy. Materialism
Discursive phase = power in language and framing of environmental change / cultural ecology
More-than-human = power in webs of relations and different actants
28
What are 'actants'?
In ANT, actants are non-human objects which mediate relations between humans and the environment
(Good definition in Latour 1996)
29
What are Henry Bernstein's (2017) four questions?
1) Who owns what?
2) Who does what?
3) Who gets what?
4) Who decides?
Bernstein 2017
Could be a good way of addressing an exam question...
30
What is the main premise of historical materialism?
Present shaped by material changes in the past through dialectic relations of production
Changes are historically contingent and NOT INEVITABLE
31
Who has been the main author behind food regime analyses?
McMichael 2009
32
What is the intellectual focus of world-systems theory?
That global economic relations are between a core (concentrated with capital) and periphery, with capital accumulating in the core
Not nestled within Nation State
(See McMichael 2009 food regime)
33
When did the first food regime emerge and why?
(3 pts, inc what countries were hegemonic powers)
In the 1870s, when the food system became globalised
Lasted until 1930s
Dominated by Britain and France
34
Why does the North (or 'Core’ in World-systems theory) have hegemony over the food system?
- Geopolitical and historical roots (colonialism)
- Also (and perhaps more significantly) through the accumulation and recirculation of capital (wages, trade etc)
35
How significant is geopolitics for world-systems theory (and specifically food regime analyses)?
Stable geopolitical power configuration enables control over periphery
36
Why did the first food regime emerge in the 1870s?
Needed cheap goods from colonies to feed urban labourers in UK and France
Underconsumption in core absorbed in the periphery where surplus could be produced to provide cheaper goods
37
What is a good paper on the historic expropriation of peasants and their land?
Watts (1984) silent violence
38
What is Watts' idea in "silent violence"?
That drought in the Housa was not the fault of farmers, but rather the fault of British colonialism commodifying agriculture
Colonies needed to pay for themselves and be profitable
(Watts 1984)
39
What is a commodity in the Marxist sense?
A reified good that is produced for exchange
Exchange value based on labour, yet does not reflect true use value of commodities
Value made to appear innate
40
Why is 'White Man's Burden' problematic? (Two reasons)
1) saviour complex
2) During colonialism, colonies (esp in French) needed to be profitable
41
Why was the accumulation by dispossession associated with colonialism and the first food regime (McMichael 2009) so significant?
Changed agriculture in the Global South away from subsistance (minimal risk)
changed to globalised food trade, prone to price fluctuations which made food unaffordable as prices went up
IT INTRODUCED NEW RISKS, ironically
42
What is cash cropping?
By introducing taxes incentivises (FORCES!) people to sell something to pay cash sum of tax
43
What is cash cropping a form of?
Primitive accumulation
44
Does backwardness cause food insecurity?
No, colonial agricultural changes and changes to the world economy do (Watts 1984)
45
Besides increasing the exposure to price fluctuations, in what other ways does primitive accumulation increase risk?
During food regimes increases risk through monocropping to maximise productivity
An ECOLOGICAL form of risk too
- consider bringing ecology into political ecology
46
With the introduction of commodified capitalist agriculture, what changes occured?
- More econ and ecological risk
- MORAL ECONOMY -> POLITICAL ECONOMY#
- You produce surplus value in all goods produced (not just surplus going to community - see Scott 1988)
47
When was the second food regime?
1950s-1970s
48
What were the characteristics of the second food regime?
- USA dominated, with domestic agro-indl revolution producing food surpluses
- Overproduction = exported goods abroad
- Cold war backdrop (prove capitalism works)
49
What is an interesting paper on the epidemeological consequences of land movement brought about by agricultural change during colonialism?
Packard 1984 (see 1B disease)
PE relatively little engagement with disease!
50
How did modernist ideas affect movement?
- Modernism about fixity
- Modernising Tanzania = preventing nomadism (Scott 1998)
- also developed villages had an aesthetic; looked pleasing, ordered. Organised ways of living (villagisation)
51
Why did the Green Rev fail in Africa?
Betting on the Strong
- Needed all inputs (fertilisers, investment, techniques) to work
- Also relied on standard environmental conditions (which vary across space)
More in Pol App
52
Why did betting on the Strong cause unequal outcomes of the green rev in Africa?
Only the wealthiest farmers could afford the necessary fertilisers, crops and inputs (AND continually replenish them)
Those with more capital were at an advantage from the start
53
Why did betting on the Strong cause unequal outcomes of the green rev in Africa?
Only the wealthiest farmers could afford the necessary fertilisers, crops and inputs (AND continually replenish them)
Those with more capital were at an advantage from the start
54
Why was ecology important in the Green Rev failure?
Need seeds that are correct for environment
Good application of ANT
55
What food regime was the Green Revolution part of?
Second (post-war) Green Rev?
56
Was there a food regime in the 1970s (after the first ended)?
Not really
Sort of a transition phase, with globalised capital restructuring
OPEC oil crisis = debt in South
57
Why did the oil crisis cause problems in the South?
- Created debt as currency value depreciated
and oil prices went up
- The value of exports depreciated and imports appreciated value (a mis-match)
58
How did the SAPs aggravate changes during the oil crisis?
Removed trade barriers
- Currencies devalued
- Made exports more competitive but imports more expensive
Bernstein 1990
59
Are we currently in a food regime?
Not sure
Currently an unstable phase; more corporatisation and uneven geographies (Cotula et al. 2009)
60
What are the epistemological differences between Political Ecology and Political Economy?
Pol Eco = Field studies, bottom up; uses Pol Econ
Pol Econ = More theoretical, macro-scale
61
What is the significance of chains of explanation?
Social life is embedded within the political economy (Polanyi, 1944)
62
What is significant about Blaikie and Brookfield's (1987) Chains of expanation?
Chains are not unilateral; they are multidirectional
Nature, environments and people are CO-PRODUCED
Actually overlooked by Blaikie and Brookfield (1987)
63
What is a good source for the multidimensionality of chains of explanation?
Robins 2004
Things that appear to be caused by individual agency are actually caused/ provoked by structures
64
What is the problem with chains of explanation?
Pre-given containers of "state", "households", "communities" etc - does not problematise the terms
65
How have the more messy realities of chains of explanation been reconceptualised?
Webs of relations (assemblage theory) - helps represent the messy realities of agricultural change
66
What is a disadvantage of webs of relations?
Lacks a clearer methodology, especially compared to chains of explanation
67
Is capialocentrism a bad thing?
Often seen as such, but perhaps it is indicative of something? (the dominance of capital)
68
Find examples of webs of relations and citations
Find citations
69
What is swidden cultivation?
aka slash and burn (pejorative)
- cut forest
- grow crops (3-5 yrs)
- allow nutrients to be absorbed
- allow forest to grow back (10-50 years)
- replenish nutrients
Restarts
70
Who said Madargascar was "committing ecological suicide"?
Prince Philip in 1985 (See Norris, 2006)
71
Have people in the west always been opposed to swidden agriculture?
No, Shantz 1924 recognised the logic of swidden cultural ecological relations
72
Why is swidden considered bad?
Does not correspond with the natural order of sublime landscape representations (Cronon, 1996) - appears extremely altered
73
Why does swidden reduce risks?
- Helps create a natural surplus which is socialised amongst communities
- Less risk relations with environment
- no prerogative for profit
74
Why is swidden ecologically beneficial?
A web of relations which has existed for millennia - helps maintain a metabolic loop, not a rift, as nutrients are able to replenish the soil
75
What is a good case study for chains of relations historically?
Scales 2011 on Swidden agriculture in Madagascar
- external global trade and market forces have shaped agriculture and deforestation
- A temporal flux of capital
- Can help accrue wealth sometimes... not all about reducing risk
.
.
.
.
(Scales 2011)
76
What do analyses of swidden agriculture in PE overlook?
- Cultural aspects: spiritual value
- Perspectives of preservation via destruction Kull (2000)
77
How has swidden argiculture been used in resitances?
A "weapon of the weak" (Scott, 1986) to resist the criminalisation of swidden
State has turned a blind eye for regulation. State has been unpacked (Scott, 1988)
78
What are the two emerging trends in agriculture in the G South?
1) Corporatisation (longer term)
2) Financialisation (esp since 2000s)
79
What does the corporatisation of agriculture involve?
FDI sent in to increase agricultural productivity (Cotula et al 2009)
80
What has the corporatisation of agriculture led to?
Monopolies - dominated by 4 private companies in South
81
What have monopolies in agriculture resulted in?
Not just dominating the market, but controlling ALL stages of production
82
What does the financialisation of agriculture involve?
- Built on commodification, yet more anticipatory
- Private finance markets
- Making investments and aiming to make returns
- creates contracts (and debt...)
(Epsitein 2005)
83
Why does financialisation make money out of thin air?
Can go short (expect price to deprecate) or long (appreciate), and make returns off this through financial markets
LOOK INTO THIS
84
What does the financialisation of agriculture entail for farmers/
Far more actors involved in determining the future of livelihoods (financiers are at the helm)
85
Do financial markets increase or decrease risk?
Debated - look into this
86
When was there a boom in publications concerning the political economy of biofuels?
What were the key publications?
2010
Including Borras et al 2010 (overview)
Dauvergne and Neville 2010 (uneven consequences)
Vermeulen et al 2010 (who decides/consultations)
87
Why have biofules expanded?
Fears (justifiably) of fossil fuel scarcity
Desiring more geosecurity
(legitimised as a necessary change)
88
What was the consequence of biofuel expansion?
2008 global food crisis
- Demand for biofuels ^, so less land for crops
Localised failure of Jatropha in Senegal (see Kant and Wu 2011) - speculative frontiers
89
What is the trouble with referring to "marginal land"?
It provides and excuse to evict people
90
What were the proximate drivers of the 2008 global food crisis?
Changes to supply (flooding, drought, land to biofuel use)
These narratives overlook the underlying drivers
91
What is the food system ultimately dependent on?
Oil
92
Why are food regimes significant?
It engineers dependency and markets (rigged - overstating??)
93
Why can Gramscian neo-Marxist analyses be rewarding?
Provides information on how consent is engineered for environmental changes / politics
Find citations
94
What is important when writing about food regime analyses?
Make sure it is grounded in examples (how/where)
Actually point towards this in answers
95
What is an interesting publication on ANT in PE (in G North...)?
Paul Robins (2007) 'Lawn People'
96
What does jumping scale involve?
Moving beyond the local to the regional and global in resistances (Jones et al 2017; Smith, 1982)
Neil Smith theorised that scale is produced...
97
What did Smith and Katz theorise regarding materialities?
Material relations in space are more significant than metaphorical (discursive) (Smith and Katz,1993)
98
Who has been critical of giving too much primacy to peasants as an alternative to capitalist agriculture?
Bernstein 2014
- "Peasant way" good for analysis
- Not good as a seed for a new system
A good critique of hatchet and seed rubric
99
Who has written about the problems of SAPs for agriculture in the G South?
What are two good points and one issue?
Bernstein 1990
Good points:
- Reproduction of capital (link to food regime change)
- Tried to make production predictable through standardisation (at detriment of small farmers)
Issue:
Essentialist views of African politics as disorderly
100
Who studied the discursive framing of forests degradation in W Africa?
Fairhead and Leach 1995
101
What is a narrative?
A story "of apparently incontrovertible logic which provide scripts and justifications for development action"
(Fairhead and Leach 1995)
102
How does a narrative differ from discourse?
- Discourse = a system of meaning among several people
- Narrative = a specific story line; with heroes (dev agencies; Swift 1996) and villains
103
What is the case study used by Fairhead and Leach's (1995) seminal study?
- Narratives about deforestation at Guinean forest margin zones in the Forest Islands of Kissidougou
Focussed on narratives created and propagated by colonial "social scientists"
104
What was the predominant narrative about deforestation in the Forest Islands of Kissidougou?
- Marginal returns
- Poor land management by local smallholders
- Overpopulated with migration
A narrative of "dysfunctionality"
(Fairhead and Leach 1995)
105
Why are narratives about deforestation powerful?
They not only shape lay attitudes but also policy (technocratic solutions; e.g., Stebbing 1937)
(Fairhead and Leach 1995)
106
What is the "counter-narrative" to prevailing narratives of deforestation in Kissidougou, Guinea?
Elders' accounts suggest that forest cover has actually increased
Directly contradicts prevailing narrative
(Fairhead and Leach 1995)
107
Why are narratives about environmental degradation particularly virulent?
- They are morally legitimising
- Frames those destroying forests etc as bad
- "the imperative is to intervene"
(Fairhead and Leach 1995)
108
What is a critique of Fairhead and Leach's seminal study of deforestation in the Forest Islands of Kissidougou?
Focusses too much on narratives without their political and epistemological context (Foucault 1982)
What actions are acceptable and WHO DECIDES?
109
Why are (and have) peasants been vilified?
- Originally to justify their submission into the capitalist means of production / through improvement
- Handy (2009) suggests more about ignorance nowadays
110
Why were colonisers displeased with the happiness of peasants?
They were happy with limited materials (Handy 2009)
111
When did backwardness narratives prevail?
From 19th century onwards, especially since Irish Great Famine (Handy 2009)
112
Who saw peasants as a barrier to economic growth in the South?
WW Rostow (Handy 2009)
Peasants were a barrier to the "take-off stage"
113
What was the trouble with Hardin's (1968) tragedy of the commons regarding peasant livelihoods?
Acted as "proof" that peasants were destructive, despite being empirically flawed (not accounting for cooperation)
Handy 2009
114
What two publications during the 1960s instigated neo-Malthusian ideas?
1. The population bomb (Erlich 1968)
2. The tragedy of the commons (Hardin 1968)
115
Are peasants in narratives real peasants?
Not really, increasingly "imagined peasants" who have had their labour power commodified
(Handy 2009)
116
Why is the perceived destruction of forest islands in Guinea aroused concern?
The islands are considered to be "an ideal nature" (Fairhead and Leach 1996)
Corresponds with Fairhead and Leach's (1995) argument that narratives are morally legitimising
116
Why is the perceived destruction of forest islands in Guinea aroused concern?
The islands are considered to be "an ideal nature" (Fairhead and Leach 1996)
Corresponds with Fairhead and Leach's (1995) argument that narratives are morally legitimising
117
Who has made an tentative link to Foucauldian discourse analysis in discussions of narratives of environmental change
Peet and Watts 1993 "hegemonic discourses" focus
118
What was the aim of Collier and Dercon 2014?
To "transform these poor peasants into a non-poor population (Collier and Dercon 2014)
Neo-colonial language, little reflexivity, lots of ignorance
119
How do Collier and Dercon (2014) perceive changes to agriculture in the G South over the next 45 years?
Needs modernisation and technology to solve the low yields of "poor peasants"
Good links to pol appetites
120
What is a good paper proving Bolserup's (1965) innovation hypothesis?
Tiffen and Mortimore 1994
(good awareness of regional idiosyncrasies)
121
What do calls for a "New Green Revolution" highlight about the inertia of narratives?
Narratives continue, lessons are not learnt from the past, and narratives become policy
(cf. Moseley 2016_
122
Can narratives for environmental change work in isolation?
No, the discourse is tied in place, allowing land to become investible (Le Billon and Sommerville 2017)
123
What is land, according to Li (2014)?
Land is an assemblage of things that make it appear commodifiable and of many affordances
Li 2014
124
Is there sort of a paradox of discourses?
Potentially - talking about discourses is itself a discourse
Means that critiques of discourses vilifying peasants are themselves a "populist discourse" (Adger et al 2001)
125
Who has considered the role of discourse for making 'truths' (Foucauldian) in PE?
Scott and Sullivan 2000
- PE about "uncovering the power relationships supported by narratives"
- Internalised privileging of certain ideas
126
What distinguishes a Foucauldian study of discourse?
Foucault (1982) saw discourse as a "regime of knowledge", producing truths, and not just a system of meaning
(Adger, et al 2001)
127
Can narratives be refuted by simply proving them inaccurate?
No, false narratives can persist (Roe 1991)
128
Who discusses the "received wisdom" of discourses on environmental change?
Leach and Mearns (1996) received wisdom
129
What is Leach and Mearns' (1996) main argument?
Colonial history is important for the continued use of narratives of backwardness
Leach and Mearns 1996
130
What is a good way of summarising the persistence of narratives?
"the stickiness of ideas" (Swift 1996)
131
How rapid did Stebbing (wrongly) estimate desertification to have advanced?
1km/year in sub-Saharan Africa (Stebbing 1937)
See Swift 1996)
132
Who resurrected Stebbing's (1937) ideas in the 1970s?
Lamprey 1975 at UN conference on desertification (UNCOD)
Swift 1996
133
Why can the continuation of narratives not just be put down to ignorance?
They continue to be used despite widespread awareness of their failure (Swift 1996)
134
Why do narratives surrounding smallholder agriculture continue to be used despite knowledge of their inaccuracies
If narratives "meet a need" (Swift 1996)
Poses two avenues:
- Marx hard: need to commodify peasants and expand the base of production (e.g., in Collier and Dercon 2011)
- Foucault proper: Institutional bias and the expectations that powerfully reproduce certain truths and knowledges (Swift 1996 - doesn't go all the way with Foucault, though)
Scott and Sullivan 2000 good for Foucault.
135
In what ways are narratives perpetuated in the interests of power and knowledge?
Roe 1995; Swift 1996
- African gov wanting control (Roe 1991)
- Acceptance in intl community for trade privileges (need to commodify)
- Scientific knowledge needed to be proved as the truth
136
In what ways does ignorance of smallholder agriculture continue today?
Swift (1996) suggests in aid bureaucracies
137
Who has discussed the application of the tragedy of the commons as a narrative for agricultural development?
Roe 1991
A focus on Botswana
138
What is a good neo-Marxist / Gramscian critique of narratives and control?
-Some locals in Botswana agree with the premise of Hardin's tragedy of the commons
- The masses legitimising the hegemonic status quo
(evidenced in Roe 1991)
139
What is one way of moving away from old narratives?
To create new ones (Roe 1991)
140
What is a good quote by Marx supporting the Foucauldian disciplinary power of narratives?
"They cannot represent themselves. They must be represented" (Marx 1852)
- Power of those behind narratives
- In Said 1978
141
What is important to consider with power in PE?
It is messy, with overlapping scales and geographies of power within and between N-S
142
When adding case studies what is always important to do?
- Introduce slowly, describe the point first
- Always explain technical terms
143
Are narratives of environmental change in the south always controversial?
Only to some (critical social scientists)
Otherwise just received wisdom
144
What are the limits to counter-narratives?
"the difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping the old ones which ramify… into every corner of our minds”
(Keynes 1936) - need more than new ideas, but need to dispel the old ones because of the association between power and knowledge
145
How can a Gramscian and Foucauldian critique of power be reconciled?
Gramsci = support by the majority supports hegemonic narratives
Foucault = power and knowledge are reinforcing
Hence legitimisation of people through different knowledge production; legitimising power
146
Do narratives emerge in isolation?
No, they emerge in a specific social context (Adger et al 2001)
147
What two theories reflect on pol econ at a global scale?
- World systems theory (Wallerstein 2004)
- Dependency theory
148
How does Collier & Durcon 2009 differ to Gates 2008 vision for agriculture in the G south?
Collier & Durcon top - down, high modernist, large corporation led
Gates smallholder entrepreneur approach (low modernist)
149
What caused the 2008 world food price crisis?
Rising cost of oil (which = rising food prices) and uneven financial speculation causing prices for some commodities to rise
Also SAPs reducing store of food (Bernstein 1990)
150
Who has highlighted that agency exists at a variety of levels?
Patel 2007 (regional differences in food supply)
Herring 2007 (local agency of smallholders using Bt cotton in India)
151
When addressing a question on scale what is important to remember?
That whilst various activities take place at specific scales, scale jumping occurs for representatives or those who link local scales to wider scales
(Watts & Scales 2015)
