Doctoral Dissertation Research: From Truck Farming to Local Food Systems

长期以来，科学家一直对农业土地保有权的不均衡模式以及这些模式如何影响农村景观及其居民感兴趣。 土地保有权也被证明受到歧视的影响，这种歧视影响到对土地的获得和控制。该项目研究了美国农业最近的变化挑战和/或再现国家农村景观的种族不平等性质的方式。 通过与遭受歧视的农民进行访谈，该项目将研究这些变化如何影响代表性不足的群体。美国农业的变化，特别是商品生产者日益不稳定的地位，以及当地粮食系统的增长，正在重塑美国的农业格局。 然而，它们的发生并不顺利或可预测，它们产生的社会和生态后果也不均衡。 虽然这些土地变化的过程在时间和空间上各不相同，但本项目致力于揭示推动当代土地政治许多偶然表现的潜在力量。 为此，该项目将种族歧视的历史研究与土地政治的理论研究结合起来。 该项目的中心研究问题是：在何种程度上和以何种方式，目前的美国农业结构调整的挑战和/或复制种族歧视的遗产？ 为了回答这个问题，本项目分析了国家权力和动态种族意识形态的变化形式如何塑造南卡罗来纳州低地-港口城市查尔斯顿周围的沿海地区-有争议的农业景观。 正是通过这种对区域景观和更广泛的政治趋势的关注，本项目将解释美国农业近期变化的不均衡程度。

Scientists have long been interested in the uneven patterns of agricultural land tenure and how those patterns affect both the rural landscape and its inhabitants. Land tenure has also been shown to be influenced by discrimination which affects access to and control over land. This project examines the ways that recent changes in U.S. agriculture challenge and/or reproduce the racially-uneven nature of the nation's rural landscape. Through interviews with farmers who have experienced discrimination, this project will examine how these changes have affected under-represented groups. The changes in U.S. agriculture, specifically the increasingly precarious position of commodity producers, and the growth of local food systems, are reshaping the nation's agricultural landscape. However, they are not occurring in a smooth or predictable manner, and they have uneven social and ecological consequences. While these processes of agrarian change vary across time and space, this project works to uncover the underlying forces that drive the many contingent manifestations of contemporary land politics. To do so, this project draws historical studies of racial discrimination together with theoretical scholarship on the politics of land. The central research question of this project is: To what extent and in what ways does the current restructuring of U.S. agriculture challenge and/or reproduce the legacies of racial discrimination? To answer this question, this project analyzes the ways that shifting forms of state power and dynamic racial ideologies shape the contested agrarian landscape of the South Carolina Lowcountry -- the coastal region surrounding the port city of Charleston. It is through this focus on the articulation of regional landscapes and broader political trends that this project will explain the uneven dimensions of recent changes in U.S. agriculture.