Doctoral Dissertation Research: Inequality in the Context of Liberalizing Agricultural Markets: Regional Patterns and Local Experiences in Mozambique

最近国际贸易谈判的失败和发达国家拒绝取消扭曲市场的农业补贴，突出表明许多发展中国家农村农业社会的脆弱地位。 虽然新自由主义发展政策敦促发展中国家开放市场并采取以贸易为基础的增长战略，但各区域和地方社区往往在经济自由化进程中遇到新的风险来源。 与市场自由化相关的变化可能会改变或促成传统社会支助网络的崩溃，从而产生新的不平等现象。 特别是对妇女来说，失去传统网络可能导致更大的困难，因为她们往往是主要的照顾者和经济行为者。 这个博士论文研究改进项目将研究莫桑比克农村收入和资源分配的变化，那里正在进行彻底的经济改革。 本项目将探讨以下问题：（1）当代市场参与对各区域资源和收入分配的影响是什么？ (2)不平等的模式如何在不同尺度上变化，这些空间变化对负市场外部性的不同脆弱性意味着什么？ (3)社会和经济不平等如何受到性别以及伴随经济改革的社区和家庭内部结构变化的影响？ 本研究将使用多标量方法来研究市场与不平等的联系。 将使用地理和多变量统计分析来审查区域模式。 实地观察、家庭调查和访谈将用于探讨当地对不平等的看法以及与市场参与有关的社区范围和性别影响。 该项目预计将表明，市场暴露和整合与跨地理范围的多种因素（如全球商品价格、国家政治、地方阶层和性别关系）相互作用，在区域、社区和家庭内部和之间产生不同的影响。 此外，通过静态收入和基础设施数据衡量的区域不平等模式预计不会与当地经验相对应，本项目将把对区域和当地地理的理解纳入对分配不平等如何在空间上产生和表现的调查。 通过研究市场风险和全球与地方经济的联系如何影响农村农业人口，预计这将有助于了解发展中国家的农村经济。 它将明确调查经济变化的经验如何受到性别的影响，并将结合定性和定量研究方法，探讨经济自由化在区域和地方一级的影响。 这项研究还将有助于当代关于家庭作为分析尺度的地理辩论。 这项研究的结果应有助于提高有针对性的扶贫计划的成功，确定那些地区和家庭最有可能被边缘化的新形式的经济自由化。 博士论文研究改进奖还将为有前途的学生提供支持，以加强研究技能并建立强大的独立研究生涯。

The recently failed of international trade negotiations and the refusal of developed nations to eliminate market-distorting farm subsidies highlight the tenuous position of rural agrarian societies in many developing countries. While neoliberal development policy urges developing nations to open their markets and adopt trade-based growth strategies, regions and local communities often encounter new sources of risk through the process of economic liberalization. The changes associated with market liberalization can generate new landscapes of inequality by transforming or contributing to the breakdown of traditional social support networks. For women in particular, the loss of traditional networks can lead to increased hardship, because they are often primary caregivers as well as economic actors. This Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement project will examine the changing distribution of income and resources in rural Mozambique, where radical economic reforms are underway. The project will address the following questions: (1) What is the impact of contemporary market involvement on the distribution of resources and income across regions? (2) How do patterns of inequality vary across scales, and what do these spatial variations imply about differential vulnerability to negative market externalities? (3) How is social and economic inequality affected by gender and the structural changes within communities and households that accompany economic reforms? This study will use a multi-scalar approach to investigate market-inequality linkages. Geographic and multivariate statistical analyses will be used to examine regional patterns. Field observation, household surveys, and interviews will be used to explore local perspectives on inequalities as well as community-wide and gendered impacts associated with market involvement. The project is expected to demonstrate that market exposure and integration interact with multiple factors across geographic scales (such as global commodity prices, national politics, and local class and gender relationships) with different effects within and across regions, communities, and households. Furthermore, regional patterns of inequality, as measured by static income and infrastructure data, are not expected to correspond to local experiences.This project will incorporate an understanding of regional and local geographies into the investigation of how distributional inequities are produced and performed across space. It is expected to contribute to understanding of rural economies in the developing world by examining how market exposure and global-local economic linkages impact rural agrarian populations. It will explicitly investigate how experiences of economic change are influenced by gender, and it will integrate qualitative and quantitative research methods to explore the impacts of economic liberalization at the regional and local scale. The study will also contribute to contemporary geographical debates on the household as a scale of analysis. Findings from this study should help increase the success of targeted poverty alleviation programs by identifying those regions and households most likely to be marginalized by new forms of economic liberalization. The Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award also will provide support to a promising student to strengthen research skills and establish a strong independent research career.