Doctoral Dissertation Research: Territorial Economy and the Politics of Agro-Industry in California's North Coast Wine District

以往对工业区的研究表明，互动、合作和协作是创新和区域工业成功的关键因素。 然而，以前的研究主要集中在手工业和制造业的区域组织和运作;它没有研究社会权力和战略如何对区域工业至关重要，也没有研究工业区的机构和做法如何在农工背景下运作。 本博士论文的研究项目将通过调查加州农业工业的当代政策、政治和运作，为这一领域做出贡献。 它将集中在北海岸葡萄酒区，特别是纳帕和索诺马县。该项目将确定研究文献中经常提到的与手工业的合作、学习和互动的性质和程度。它试图了解工业区之间更复杂的相互作用。 这项研究将突出经济业绩产生的社会力量如何支撑该行业的运作。 它还将描述如何政治行动，自我组织，社区参与，治理，领导和合作是必要的工业保护在一个快速变化的生产地区，如北海岸葡萄酒区，一个地区下显着和日益增长的发展压力和经历相关的发展和土地使用冲突。 数据将通过调查和采访酒厂老板，葡萄种植者和葡萄园经理收集。将与其他行业代表、政府官员和活动家进行额外的采访。这些信息将与从档案来源（政府文件、图书馆馆藏和其他记录）收集的材料以及对区域和工业指标的统计分析相结合。 将采用商品链办法，绘制随机抽样葡萄酒公司的区域供应、生产和分销网络图，以确定其地理范围。 此外，还将采用人种学方法追踪酿酒厂企业家、葡萄种植者和葡萄园管理者的职业历史，以衡量他们的互动程度、边做边学、正式的行业参与，并了解行业的权力关系。 比较案例研究将通过探索行业参与者和其他区域权力中心（例如新农村居民、游客、开发商和其他农民）如何在某些情况下发生冲突，以及在涉及行业相关政策的其他情况下如何合作来完善分析。两个县的土地利用。该项目预计将提供北海岸葡萄酒行业，其区域背景和社会基础的新知识。 它将有助于正在进行的理论辩论和理解的过程中，区域农业工业的发展和变化，在农村地区。它将通过审查何种做法和政策能够产生有竞争力的工业、创新和区域学习，以及何种进程能够在不同利益集团之间就相互冲突的发展目标进行谈判，为农村决策者提供信息和帮助。 更广泛地说，它将提供有关农村地区和工业如何应对全球化和城市化等更广泛力量的新信息。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立的研究生涯。

Previous research on industrial districts has shown that interaction, cooperation, and collaboration are crucial elements to innovation and regional industrial success. However, this previous research has focused primarily on the regional organization and operation of craft and manufacturing industries; it has not examined how social power and strategy are fundamental to regional industries or investigated how the institutions and practices of industrial districts might operate in an agro-industrial context. This doctoral dissertation research project will contribute to this field by investigating the contemporary policies, politics and operation of agro-industry in California. It will focus on the North Coast Wine District, in particular, Napa and Sonoma counties. The project will determine the character and extent of cooperation, learning and interaction often identified in the research literature with craft industries. It seeks to understand the more complex interaction of industrial districts. The research will highlight how social power derived from economic performance underpins the operation of the industry. It will also delineate how political action, self-organization, community participation, governance, leadership and cooperation are necessary for industrial preservation in a rapidly changing production region like the North Coast Wine District, a region under significant and increasing development pressure and experiencing related development and land-use conflicts. Data will be collected through a survey and interviews with winery owners, grape growers, and vineyard managers. Additional interviews will be conducted with other industry representatives, government officials, and activists. This information will be combined with material collected from archival sources (government documents, library collections, and other records), and with statistical analysis of regional and industrial indicators. A commodity chain approach will be used to map the regional supply, production and distribution networks of a random sample of wine firms to determine their geographic extent. In addition, an ethnographic approach will be used to trace the professional histories of winery entrepreneurs, grape growers and vineyard managers to measure the extent of their interaction, learning by doing, formal industry participation, and understand the industry's power relations. Comparative case studies will round out the analysis by exploring how industry participants and other regional centers of power, such as new rural residents, tourists, developers, and other farmers, conflict in some cases, and collaborate in other cases involving industry-related policy development and land use in the two counties. The project is expected to provide new knowledge of the North Coast wine industry, its regional context, and its social basis. It will contribute to on-going theoretical debates and understandings of the process of regional agro-industrial development and change in rural areas. It will inform and assist rural policy makers by examining what kinds of practices and policies generate competitive industry, innovation and regional learning, and what sorts of processes are capable of negotiating conflicting development objectives among diverse interests. More generally it will provide new information on how rural regions and industries respond to broader forces like globalization and urbanization. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.