Relational Agriculture: Gender,Sexuality, and Sustainability in U.S. Farming

Although 97% of U.S. farms are “family-owned,” little research examines how gender and sexual relationships – inherent in familial dynamics – influence farmers’ practices and livelihoods. Gender and sexual dynamics – shaped by race and class – affect who is considered a farmer, land management decisions, and access to resources like land, subsidies, and knowledge. We use feminist and queer lenses to illuminate how today’s agricultural gender and sexual relations are not “natural,” but when left uninterrogated are constructed in ways that harm women and queer farmers while limiting potential to develop sustainable practices. Women and queer farmers also resist, “re-orienting” gender and sexual relations in ways that expand possibilities for achieving food justice and ecological sustainability. We offer “relational agriculture” as a tool for making visible and re-orienting gender and sexual relations on farms. Relational agriculture brings sexuality into food justice and demonstrates the centrality of gender and sexuality to agricultural sustainability.     

South American heartland: the Charcas, Latin American geopolitics and global strategies

Mackinder's 1904 'geographical pivot of history' concept, subsequently developed into his famous 'Eurasian heartland thesis', marginalizes South America, yet his ideas have attracted considerable interest there, including interpretations (and fantasies) of a 'South American heartland'. This paper examines the reception of Mackinder's ideas in Latin American geopolitics and how his heartland thesis was adapted for the South American context. It traces the roots of this adaptation in earlier South American geopolitical writing, and examines these ideas of counter-insurgency policies and global geopolitical strategies, analysing their relationship to military and anticommunist perspectives.     

Fatal Couplings of Power and Difference: Notes on Racism and Geography

To study the complexities of race and geography, research and analysis should center on the fatally dynamic coupling of power and difference signified by racism. The author considers briefly the theoretical and methodological implications of key frameworks geographers used during the past century to account for racialized power differentials. To illustrate the political, economic, and cultural capacities that historical materialist geographical inquiry ought to consider, the author outlines the background for a new project—a case study of the U.S. during a period of unusually intense state‐building in the mid‐twentieth century. The article concludes that the political geography of race consists of space, place, and location as shaped simultaneously by gender, class, and scale.     

Geographic EducationResearch and the Changing Institutional Structure of American Education

Professional geographers are paying increasing attention to the development of a research agenda concerning geographic education. In doing so, it is essential that geographers pay close attention to fundamental changes in the structure of education itself. Traditional educational methods and procedures associated with industrial society are being replaced by new and innovative modes of education that are linked to post-industrial social organization. This article explores the implications of these changes for understanding the teaching and learning of geography in the future.     

Geographic EducationResearch and the Changing Institutional Structure of American Education

Professional geographers are paying increasing attention to the development of a research agenda concerning geographic education. In doing so, it is essential that geographers pay close attention to fundamental changes in the structure of education itself. Traditional educational methods and procedures associated with industrial society are being replaced by new and innovative modes of education that are linked to post-industrial social organization. This article explores the implications of these changes for understanding the teaching and learning of geography in the future.     

Spaces of change: tribal authorities in the former KaNgwane homeland, South Africa

South Africa's democratic transition has had a significant impact upon localized governance systems in mediating development opportunities within the former apartheid homelands. This paper uses a case study from the former KaNgwane homeland to evaluate the role of the Matsamo Tribal Authority in shaping livelihoods and access to environmental resources. It is argued that although the colonial and apartheid empowerment of the tribal authorities continues to have symbolic and material meaning for rural populations, newly created democratic structures are challenging traditional governance systems in the post-apartheid era. The intersection between these contrasting, and historically situated, systems suggests a dynamic renegotiation is occurring that will continue to impact rural households within the former places of apartheid.     

Standards-Directed Education: The Good,the Bad,and the Ugly

Abstract

GIS Concepts and ArcGIS Methods, David M. Theobald Fort Collins, CO: Conservations Planning Technologies, 2003. 342 pp. ISBN 0-9679208-2-5 $55.00 (paper)

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, James W. Loewen New York: A Touchstone Book, Simon &; Schuster. 1995. 383 pp. Figures, references, and index, ISBN: 0684818868. $14.00 (paper).     

Changing Rural Spaces: Deregulation and the decline of tobacco farming in the Mareeba-Dimbulah Irrigation Area,Far North Queensland

The growing of tobacco was one of the most tightly regulated industries in Australia, until deregulation in 1995. Commonwealth regulations controlled the area cultivated with tobacco, the number of growers (i.e. quota holders) and marketing arrangements for tobacco leaf. This paper begins by outlining the nature and historical development of controls in the tobacco-growing industry, and discusses how the Commonwealth government removed the industry's regulatory and protective framework in 1995. The third part of the paper examines how deregulation has impacted upon the Mareeba-Dimbulah Irrigation Area, Far North Queensland, where small farmers produced 60 per cent of Australia's tobacco in 1995. The discussion will show that the agricultural landscape once dominated by tobacco has been transformed, as local farmers abandoned growing tobacco in favour of sugar cane, avocadoes, mangoes, macadamia nuts and other small vegetable crops (e.g. navy beans, pumpkins). Tobacco, once promoted by the Queensland government as a crop to facilitate closer settlement in the Mareeba-Dimbulah Irrigation Area, will have almost vanished from the landscape by 2002.