Growing Food and Social Change: Rural Adaptation, Participatory Action Research and Civic Food Networks in North America
| dc.contributor.author | Anderson, Colin Ray | |
| dc.contributor.examiningcommittee | Masuda, Jeff (Environment and Geography) Thompson, Shirley (Natural Resource Institute) Koç, Mustafa (Ryerson) | en_US |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | McLachlan, Stephane (Environment and Geography) | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2014-04-11T23:13:29Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2014-04-11T23:13:29Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2012 | en_US |
| dc.degree.discipline | Environment and Geography | en_US |
| dc.degree.level | Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | The goal of this research was to better understand how farm families adapt to global environmental and political-economic change to secure their livelihoods and to build more resilient food systems. The dissertation reports on five iterative cycles of participatory action research that resulted in a diversity of pragmatic, conceptual and theoretical outcomes. I first examined how farmers adapted to the BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) crisis in the Canadian Prairies, identifying three general adaptation types: ‘exiting’ from beef production or agriculture; ‘enduring’ through adaptations that seek stability; and ‘innovating’ to pursue new opportunities, including direct farm marketing and cooperatives as important forms of grassroots adaptation. Next, I reported on a five-year action research project that developed a “civic food network” in rural Manitoba, which emerged in large part as a response to the BSE crisis. This case study examined the tensions, politics and opportunities that arise through the intensely socially embedded relationships that underpin these grassroots innovations. I argue that CFNs must productively engage with difference if they are to reach their full potential for rural development and social change. Next, I examine the barriers that confront the local food movement, especially as they relate to food safety regulations. A series of short articles and videos are presented that were used to buttress the political efforts of our participatory action research team to advocate for scale-appropriate regulations in Manitoba. Next, I examined my PhD research as a whole to illustrate how participatory action research transgresses “academic” and “non-academic” knowledge and space to mobilize knowledge in intentional processes of social transformation. Through this research, we developed three Knowledge Mobilization strategies. These include: Using transmedia to exchange knowledge via multiple platforms and mediums; “setting hooks” to draw together diverse knowledge communities; and layering to deliver knowledge at varying levels of detail and complexity. Finally, through a performative autoethnographic script, I deconstruct graduate education, the dissertation and the professionalizing discourses that impede a vibrant “public scholarship” in Universities. As a whole, this participatory action research simultaneously argues for and also embodies democratic approaches to research and to agriculture and food practice and policy. | en_US |
| dc.description.note | May 2014 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.citation | Anderson, C. R., & McLachlan, S. M. (2012). Exiting, enduring and innovating: Farm household adaptation to global zoonotic disease. Global Environmental Change, 22(1), 82-93. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.11.008 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1993/23453 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Elsevier | en_US |
| dc.rights | open access | en_US |
| dc.subject | rural studies | en_US |
| dc.subject | civic food networks | en_US |
| dc.title | Growing Food and Social Change: Rural Adaptation, Participatory Action Research and Civic Food Networks in North America | en_US |
| dc.type | doctoral thesis | en_US |
| local.subject.manitoba | yes | en_US |