Reading Summaries (4): Race, Culture, and Practice

Objectives of Henson & Munsey’s (2014) article is to correlate changes in residential segregation dynamics over a 50-year period with the social processes of isolation (black isolation from white and white isolation from black) in Birmingham, Alabama. On the other word, this study illustrated the spatial distribution of cultural attitudes and the relationality of space and the effect of segregation on that relationality. According to Cultural Capital approach from Bourdieu, Space is made up of the material flow of money and people/bodies. The processes and flows produce and reproduce racialized spaces (racial isolation and economic accumulation) in the real world. 

Cultural Capital, particularly in racial capitals or spatialized social structure in Birmingham, are developed by the three primary positions of the structure; the first is wealthy White, the second is middle-class and low-income Whites and the third position is Black. Internalization of this social position (that shapes the behavior of particular social agents) is known as Habitus concept. It operates in fields in which agents of differing social position use their capital to struggling over a particular resource (p. 999). Using urban geography methods (Geographic Information System/GIS analysis of segregation, participant observation in the alternative food meetings, and In-depth interview with leaders or important actors in the food movement, civic, and business leader) the study shows that the dominant habitus in Birmingham’s local food and agriculture movement is racialized White, which they dominate the philanthropic and non-profit sector in Birmingham.

 

It was interesting to analyze the dialectical relationship between habitus and space in the context of social and spatial segregation. Different to Green et. al article before which focuses on the resiliency of black farmer’s livelihood system in southern America (power relation approach), Henson & Munsey’s are more concentrate on the relationship between space, culture, and practice in the urban movement/community context. This article is excellence because they can deliver a detailed visualization about social segregation in the urban areas during a long period/processes. Reading this paper is a great exercise to understand “community structure” in the different lenses (post-modern theory and urban geography).

original article:

Race, Culture, and Practice: Segregation and Local Food in Birmingham, Alabama

Zachary Henson & Genevieve Munsey (2014)

picture: here

Reading Summaries (3): Technoscience in Agriculture

The country-based case studies of commodity systems are the interesting approach to the contemporary research of global agrifood system. From Tanaka’s et. al (2010) and MSU-SAGT contributions, We also learn that the power of nation-state in the liberal market is not only arisen from the economic, politics, and capital force but also from knowledge and technology (knowledge-based economy). Just as the power of knowledge diffusion requires a better understanding of the knowledge-based networks (OECD, 1996) so that ANT and CSA approach are very helpful to trace linkages from one dimension to another.

Tanaka & Juska’s (2010) article illustrated the early phase of the Michigan State University School of Agrifood, Governance, and Technoscience (MSU-SAGT) featured research in the 1990s. This paper is similar to Bonano’s article (2009) about the history of the Missouri School but had had different emphasis and approach to the MSU-SAGT field research. MSU-SAGT is one of the best practices for research combination and implementation of Commodity System Analysis (CSA), which delineated by Friedland (1984), and Actor Network Theory (ATN), which described by Latour (1987), in the case study of rapeseed market globalization (Canada, Japan, US, Europian, China, and India). This paper not only discusses and systematically examine the significant change of the rapeseed commodity system but also provided a critical understanding of governance as the process and mechanism of the network and power distribution among actors. 

By the “simple” methodology that so-called “follow the actor,” their research following a given actor (a commodity in CSA and technoscience product in ANT) and analyze the transformation process, including human and nonhuman interaction. The purposes of this approach are to open the rules of the game and the invisible hand within actors network by investigating and examining their power relation. MSU-SAGT also emphasized the critical role of technoscience politics (interdependence of technologies and scientific knowledge) by comparing the networks, actors, and symmetry that change over time and differ across space.  Meanwhile ANT, as a research tool, focuses on the processes and practices of scientist, technicians, and engineers that constituted the capacity of technoscience in the agrifood system, CSA focus to follow a given commodity from production to consumption and investigate how economic and political activities have become increasingly globalized.

 

Original Article: 

 

Technoscience in Agriculture:

Reflections on the Contributions of the MSU School of Sociology of Food and Agriculture

Keiko Tanaka & Arunas Juska

 

Brief Reflection on Stability and Change in the Sustainable Community Development

Social relations among community fields is never static. Change is happening everywhere, sometimes intentional but often unplanned. The rates of change also vary from community to community. There are also various causes of changes in the community; environmental factors, culture, social movement, conflict, technology, diffusion of information, need for adaptation, and so on. Theoretically, community system has a dual structure. One side is designed for evaluation and change. The other hand is designed for stability, for regular performance, and for predictability (Cook, 1994). When these two sides interact, tension is usually experienced between them.

Stability can be defined at the ecosystem level and the species level. Variation among species in their response to such fluctuation is an essential requirement for ecosystem stability. Evidence from multiple ecosystems suggests that biological diversity acts to stabilize ecosystem functioning in the face of environmental change (Cleland, 2011). Similar to this ecosystem theory, recent social research also has found that diversity and integrity of social, ecological and economic aspects of the system are essential for sustainable community development (Dale & Sparkes, 2010).

Reading Summaries (2): The Neoliberal Food Regime

The most significant factor in the globalization of agriculture and food is national and international regulation for trade liberalization. We need a theorization of state-facilitated reorganization into Neoregulation because Neoliberal globalism are depends centrally on the state to play a central role in neoliberal ideology. Furthermore, Pechlaner & Otero also hypothesize that the globalization of agriculture and food will be tempered not only by the differential interests and abilities of the individual nation-state but also by the resistance to Neoregulation that arise within them (p. 182). The authors offer an empirical analysis of Neoregulation using the food-regime perspective in the three countries of NAFTA: the United States, Canada, and Mexico. 

According to McMichael (2004), the basis of the neoliberal food regime is centered on the political elimination of barriers to capital in social and natural relations (p. 183). This concept is coherence with the goals of NAFTA and WTO to the trade liberalization and promoting free trade internationally. However, in the conclusion of this article, the transnational mobilization also depends on the sociopolitical dynamics at the local and national level that could limit the activity of WTO. From another point of view, this article has different emphasis, not only focus on the global food politics but also acknowledge the tension in the formation of the third contemporary food regime;

• food security vs. food sovereignty,
• WTO vs. Via Campesina,
• the centrality of knowledge intensive technology (genetic engineering/GE) vs. protections to the small-holder agricultures,
• high-value agricultural goods in developing countries vs. food vulnerability and its resistance at the level of the nation-state, and
• uniform rules for all vs. protectionism.

Reaction:

In the context of colonization and the relation of power (Foucaldian perspectives), it is clear that liberal capitalism/neoliberal ideology are zero-sum-games. The United States and Canada were the winners in NAFTA and Mexico as the developing/poor countries are the losers. This system empirically reformulated the colonial formations. On the other word, Neoliberalism is another name of Neocolonialism itself.

Questions:

Gerardo Otero on the Journal of Poverty (2011) also wrote about “Mexico Lost of Food and Labor Sovereignty.” He underlined the most important point in his article that Mexico’s asymmetrical integration into the NAFTA had a detrimental impact on its food self-sufficiency, its labor sovereignty, and substantially increased its out-migration rates. How can we explain the future economic and political relationship between Mexico and the US under current presidency, particularly on “building wall” policy to reduce the “illegal” migration/worker? Where is the position of Canada at this political tension?

source of picture: click here

source of reading/article:

The Neoliberal Food Regime: Neoregulation and the New Division of Labor in North America

Gabriel Pechlaner & Gerardo Otero

click here

Reading Summaries (1): Agricultural Development and Black Farmers in the American South

“From the past to the present” paper’s exploring the history and social change processes of black farmers’ livelihood system in the south of America, especially those in the Mississippi Delta region. Green at.al was analyzing through the structural/power relation approach to describe the inequality and limited access in pursuing more sustainable livelihoods. Just as the means of production and labor control are important factors, so the resiliency of black farmer’s livelihood system in southern America is influenced by the structural condition in which they embedded. In the context of power relations, black farmers have traditionally been at a disadvantage and defined as being less worthy than white farmers by their class, gender, race, ethnicity, and ownership. By the slavery, tenancy, sharecropping, and the crop-lien system, the elite white continued control over labor in the past. This fact reminds us that the land ownership is the most valuable resource for the sustainable livelihood.

However, we must also consider to the complexities faced by the specific structure of agriculture, family farming, and farmers’ group. For instance, black producers faced more challenges to their livelihoods system during the capital-intensive system in agriculture (1920-1970). A variety of discrimination preventing them to participating in and access to government agricultural program. On the other hand, the state has not provided an adequate protection and assistance for black producers. This structural forms of discrimination illustrate the challenges they have faced over the generation. To survive and achieve greater livelihood security and sustainability, then they have had to mobilize and organizing efforts from the grassroots (self-help associations, cooperatives, and alliance with civil rights initiatives). In short, exploring the history of black farmers in Mississippi allow us to more clearly articulate structural constraints on livelihood system and create an alternative strategy - community-based cooperatives, poor people’s cooperatives, Rural Coalition and so on - to overcome these challenges.

In my opinion (please correct me if I am wrong), Green et.al. analysis on the black producers in Mississippi and the “commodity systems analysis” by William H. Friedland, illustrated the early phase of the Missouri School featured research. In this period  (the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s) the Missouri School applying and emphasis on the structure of agriculture, migrant agricultural labor, and quality of life in rural communities. After this period, Heffernan and his group shifted their focus to the capital concentration in agri-food commodities (Bonanno, 2009). At this point, I understand why Bonanno said that the Missouri School had brought a tradition and ideas rooted in the heartland of the United States to the global forum.

source of picture: click here

source of reading/article :

From the Past to the Present: 

Agricultural Development and Black Farmers in the American South

John J. Green, Eleanor M. Green, and Anna M. Kleiner

click here

- yanu prasetyo -