Dear Colleagues (apologies for cross-posting)
Please contact us if you’re interested in contributing a paper to this AAA
panel. Please e-mail proposed paper titles and abstracts (max. 250 words)
to Paolo Bocci ([log in to unmask]) and Andrew Flachs ([log in to unmask])
by *Wednesday, March 27th*. If you have any questions or comments, please
do not hesitate to contact us.
CFP: AAA 2019 “Changing Climates: Struggle, Collaboration, and
Justice/Changer d’air: Lutte, collaboration, et justice.”
American Anthropological Association Meeting
Vancouver, BC
November 20 – November 24
Co-Chairs, Paolo Bocci and Andrew Flachs, Discussant: Sarah Lyon
*Creative and tenacious farmwork: Rethinking resistance and resilience in
agriculture*
While seldom in dialogue, the analytics of ‘resilience’ and ‘resistance’
have informed scholarly debates of change and political possibility in
rural life. Resilience, the ability to absorb disturbance, has become a
central organizing framework in the study of socioecological systems
because it challenges equilibrium-based theories in ecology and
anthropology, helping describe dynamic responses in resource management,
conservation, finance, climate change, and security (Walker and Cooper
2011; González, Montes, and Rodríguez 2008; Berkes, Folke, and Colding 2000).
Ironically, given its claims of flexibility, resilience often continues a
dualistic understanding of human and nature whereby humans cannot do
anything but respond and adapt. Resistance, a crucial concept in critical
agrarian studies and political economy, has informed academic literature
around peasants’ struggles for land tenure, political organization, and
production control. Confronting contemporary forms of economic and
conservation enclosure, an analysis of ‘resistance’ that confronts
contemporary economic and conservation enclosure recognizes that
smallholders create counter-narratives, form complex political alliances,
and participate in dominant economic forms (Hall et al. 2015). Yet the
ability to pursue viable and vital rural life, whether legible or not as a
form of politics “from below” (Borras and Franco 2013), remains often
unexplored. By rethinking resistance and resilience in agrarian life, this
panel aims to theorize the creative and tenacious ways that small farmers
create rural worlds in an era of urbanization, economic interconnections at
multiple scales, and agrarian populism.
Small farmers are not disappearing in the contemporary globalized political
economy – to the contrary, these communities creatively shape global
agrarian capitalism (van der Ploeg 2014). We seek papers that explore the
forms of vitality that farmers possess within, or despite, these structural
forces. How do farmers generate localized, alternative opportunities for
livelihood and wellbeing? How do they respond to the dominant discourse and
policies, such as those around organic agriculture or conservation, to live
by and affirm distinct practices and values beyond mere endurance? Although
we recognize the paramount value of discussing and advocating for
structured forms of counter-politics, including the mobilization of
ancestral knowledge, this panel looks at forms of world-making that are
emerging, situated, and informal. Much agricultural life impacted by and in
conversation with global socioecological change is not captured by the
usual analytics of resistance and resilience. Nonetheless, it effectively
shapes this rural political economy. We welcome contributions exploring
farmers’ tenacious and creative responses to and within institutions whose
reach has increased worldwide (especially in the Global South), and we
encourage panelists with theoretical insights and case studies of
institutions including agribusiness, conservation, political activism,
right- and left-wing populism, certified organic, and fair trade labeling.
*References*
Berkes, Fikret, Carl Folke, and Johan Colding
2000 Linking Social and Ecological Systems: Management Practices and
Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience. Cambridge University Press.
Borras, Saturnino, and Jennifer C. Franco
2013 Global Land Grabbing and Political Reactions ‘From Below.’ Third
World Quarterly 34(9): 1723–1747.
González, José, Carlos Montes, and Daniel Rodríguez
2008 Rethinking the Galapagos Islands as a Complex Social-Ecological
System: Implications for Conservation and Management.
Hall, Ruth, Marc Edelman, Saturnino M. Borras Jr, et al.
2015 Resistance, Acquiescence or Incorporation? An Introduction to Land
Grabbing and Political Reactions ‘from Below.’ The Journal of Peasant
Studies 42(3–4): 467–488.
van der Ploeg, Jan Douwe
2014 Peasant-Driven Agricultural Growth and Food Sovereignty. The
Journal of Peasant Studies 41(6): 999–1030.
Walker, Jeremy, and Melinda Cooper
2011 Genealogies of Resilience: From Systems Ecology to the Political
Economy of Crisis Adaptation. Security Dialogue 42(2): 143–160.
--
Andrew Flachs
Assistant Professor, Anthropology
Purdue University
www.andrewflachs.com
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