The Dictionary of Human Geography (67 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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farming
Most literally, the land based, human managed production offood and fibre by the transformation of seed into crops and/ or the raising of livestock (the latter of which is also referred to as pastoralism or ranching). Farming is of general significance for all social scientists, because it is the most routine and widespread way in which humans directly interact with nature, and because adequate food production and consumption has proven to be crucial for the stability of social formations. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Farming as a capitalist enterprise preceded England?s industrial revolution, as tenant farmers began cultivating wool for the nascent textile industry (see agricultural revolu tion). Since the Second World War, the world has seen massive transformation of farming sectors. In the industrialized counties, these transformations began with the proliferation of technologies of intensive agriculture, especially those that relied on the development of petrochemical inputs; these technologies were extended to some areas of the third world, with the idea that high yielding agriculture (see green revolution) and industrialization were keys to development (Goodman and Redclift, 1991). Since the 1980s, however, rural populations have sub stantially declined (see urbanization). The 1970s was a period of farm expansion, owing to the USA selling massive amounts of grain to the Soviet Union, which caused a temporary food shortage and high prices for farmers. The collapse in prices that followed contributed to the international debt crises of the 1980s, which forced many farmers out of business who could no longer pay the farm mortgages they acquired in the previous expansion (Friedmann, 1993). Recent free trade agree ments have allowed low cost producers, such as the USA, to dump surplus crops in cash poor regions and countries, undermining the livelihoods of peasants and small farmers, contributing to even more displacement. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Categorizing patterns of farm land use was a staple feature of traditional agricultural geography (Tarrant, 1974). Farm size has continued to be a major analytic in empirical studies of farming, owing in part to the avail ability of census data, which are often reported as acres/hectares in production and/or gross sales. As the political economy of agricul ture tradition came to dominate agricultural geography in the 1980s, more effort was put into developing more theoretically informed typologies of farm business organization and to help explain changes in farming practice (see, e.g., Whatmore, Munton, Little and Mardsen, 1987). These efforts engaged with a long sociological tradition concerned with the class location of farmers and the social organization of farming relative to state and capital (see Buttel and Newby, 1980). land tenure, capital ownership, labour relations, family life cycle and rent seeking thus became primary analytics, and the persistence of the family farm, defined as that where family members provide all or most of the agricultural labour regardless of the extent of its commercial orientation (cf. subsistence agriculture) became a central theoretical question. One widely cited theorization of this uneven development of capitalist agriculture was Goodman, Sorj and Wilkinson (1987). capitalism has developed around farming, they argued, because with its basis in land and biology, farming itself remains risky, while the processes that serve farming are more eas ily commodified and sold back to the farmer (see agrarian question; substitutionism). Watts (1994a) drew on these arguments in his work on contract farming, noting that the degree to which buyer firms specify required processes and inputs in their contracts has made many peasants equivalent to wage labourers on their own land. Sachs (1996) added that the enduring family basis of farm ing in most parts of the world has in large part depended on highly gendered divisions of labour within peasant households. In some sectors and regions, however, farming oper ations themselves are large scale, capitalist enterprises (Heffernan and Constance, 1994). Highly mechanized corporate farms should be differentiated from plantations that, while corporately owned and managed and large in scale, employ many manual labourers. (NEW PARAGRAPH) In the early 1990s, agro food scholars began to take note of divergent trends in farming and food production. Heightened pubic concern with food safety and quality, the ecological effects of agriculture and the changing countryside (in some cases depopulation, in others urbanization) seemed to support a turn towards farming that would be more sensitive to ecological concerns and protective of rural livelihoods. In addition, growth in part time and hobby farming, a resurgence of back to the land sensibilities among those seeking alternative lifestyles, along with a putative shift in national forms of farm regulation away from commodity supports seemed to indicate a ?post productivist? transition in agriculture (Marsden, 1992). While the dramatic rise in organics, for example, seems to provide sup port for this claim, the European and US farming sectors are state supported more than ever, albeit in different ways to different ends. Meanwhile, many Third World farming sectors are producing high value fruits and vegetables under conditions of structural adjustment. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Technology driven intensive agricuLture has hardly gone away, in spite of increased incidences of biological ?blowback? from industrial food production such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or ?mad cow? disease. Driven in part by the twin revolutions in information science and bio technoLogy, farming itself seems to be mov ing in directions that belie the opening definition of this entry. Already, surplus com modities, such as corn and oil seed, which have long been a source of livestock fodder, are being deployed for industrial uses. Precision agriculture uses satellite data to determine local variation in soil conditions and plant development, and information tech nologies to track and fine tune applications of farm inputs. Genetic engineering has been used to improve crop protection by, for example, engineering natural pesticides or frost protection into plants. The use of genet ically engineered livestock or plants to pro duce medically useful crops or ?gene pharming? is just in the pipeline, as is the introduction of nutrients or vaccines into existing food crops. These sorts of develop ments are drawing geographers to new ques tions and theorizations, many borrowed from the toolkits of science and technology studies. (NEW PARAGRAPH) At the same time, many of these technolo gies carry ecological risks and are also leading to unprecedented degrees of privatization. Therefore, they have become a major galvan izing feature of contemporary sociaL move ments. Since most of these trends point to a continued decline in rural populations, the family farm seems to have achieved heigh tened ideoLogicaL status. Thus, the distinc tions between peasant, family and corporate forms are not just academic, but are relevant to political practice, particularly given the re emergence of discourses of agrarian popuLism within both institutions of deveLopment and social justice oriented social movements (Wolford, 2003). jgu (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Bell (2004); Duncan (1996); Guthman (2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
fascism
A political ideoLogy that formed the basis of political parties and social move ments that emerged in europe between the two world wars. The nationalist governments of Adolf Hitler in Germany (1933 45) and Benito Mussolini in Italy (1922 43) are the most notable examples, but fascism was a pol itical force across Europe at the time, includ ing Oswald Mosley?s ?black shirts? in Britain, the Iron Guard in Romania and the Croix de Feu in France (Laqueur, 1996). Despite the lack of a seminal intellectual text, the follow ing characteristics of the ideology can be iden tified: extreme racist nationaLism; a desire for a ?pure? nation state that contains just one national group; goals of territorial expansion to include all members of a nation within the borders of the state (cf. Lebensraum); anti communism and other forms of working class organization; vioLence represented as neces sary for the survival of the nation and as a pathway to fulfilling innate human needs; a glorification of manliness and gender roles, promoting men as defenders of the nation and women?s primary role in the biological reproduction of the nation (cf. mascuLinism); and a mass politics in which the state and the party fuse and mass participation in politics (based upon a cult of the leader) is encour aged. Elements of these ideologies exist in contemporary nationalist political parties across the world, as extreme nationalism is mobilized in the wake of social dynamics (such as immigration and a decline in the power of the state) that are identified as ?threats?. Political parties in Russia and Serbia display some of these traits, as do the British National Party and some extremist right wing move ments in the USA. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The racism of fascist movements is often, but not necessarily, anti Semitic. Jews are fre quently targeted as enemies because, prior to the establishment of the state of Israel, they lacked connection to a particular territory. Hence, they were seen as disloyal to the nation or inimical to the idea of territorial nation states. The foreign policy of the Nazi Party was partially informed by the ideas of geo poLitik, which saw territorial expansion as a strategy related to the hoLocaust and the extermination of Jews (as well as gypsies, communists and homosexuals), to create a political geography of a ?pure? and ?greater? Germany (Clarke, Doel and McDonough, 1996: see also genocide). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Social scientists and historians have debated the social bases of fascism. The idea that the middle classes were the main source of sup port dominated until recent years, when the notion of a cross cLass support for the Nazis emerged. The geography offascism shows that support is based upon different class coalitions in different localities, within the broader context of economic restructuring and inter state competition (Flint, 2001). Recent scholarship has argued that the support for inter war fascism was more widespread than (NEW PARAGRAPH) had been believed (Goldhagen, 1996), with ?ordinary citizens?? rather than committed party members carrying out much of the kill ing in the Holocaust. This controversial work has contemporary implications as geographers have turned their attention to genocide, under the label of ?ethnic cLeansing?, in the former Yugoslavia and in Africa. cf (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Larsen, Hagtvet and Myklebust (1980); Laqueur (1996). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
fecundity
An individual?s capacity to repro duce (as distinct from fertility, an individ ual?s actual reproductive performance). A physical (biological) component varies with age and sex, with women reaching peak fecundity between menstruation and meno pause, and male fecundity decreasing, but less rapidly, with old age. Infecundity increases with poor nutrition and ill health: the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic has reduced fertility levels in many regions both because of the premature deaths of potential parents and because fecundity is impaired (Gregson, 1994). Research also recognizes a social com ponent when, for example, women believe they cannot give birth, and when medical practitioners expressly counsel against giving birth. ajb (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Weeks (1999, Ch. 5). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
federalism
A form of government in which power and functions are divided between central and regional authorities with the goal of providing autonomy to regional units (Wheare, 1963). Federal forms of government vary widely, but require a written constitution to delimit the roles of different levels of gov ernment. Federalist states usually experience a continual political process of defining the degree of centralization and regional auton omy. In states with geographically concentra ted ethnic groups (see ethnicity), federalism can reinforce ethnic differences, but it also provides a political solution to ethnic compe tition for control of the state (Ikporukpo, 2004). cf (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Smith (1995). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
feedback
A reciprocal effect within a sys tem, whereby change in one variable (A) influ ences changes in others (B, C), which may then stimulate further change in A. Negative feedback generally maintains the system?s equi librium: an increase in the number of aniMAls in an ecosystem may stimulate growth in the number of their predators, whose actions then reduce the number of animals to the previous level. Such systems are morphostatic, in dynamic equilibrium; the period between any shock to the system and the return to its equi librium state is termed its relaxation time. With positive feedback, an increase in A may stimulate increase in B, which in turn stimu lates further growth in A, as in the multiplier processes associated with input output modeLs. Such systems are morphogenetic. rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Langton (1972). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
feminism
A diffuse political movement, which has varied over space and time, that aims to identify and dismantle systematic gen der inequality, and the myriad ways in which gender differentiation, heteronormativity, mascuLinism, and phaLLocentricism natur alize, anchor and relay all kinds of sociaL excLusion, and physical and symbolic vio lence. It struggles to improve women?s lives across a range of issues: vioLence against women; sexual harassment; access and equity in schools, workplaces, before the law and within political life; the division of domestic Labour; and reproductive rights, among others. It seeks to revolutionize thought in daily life and throughout the arts and sciences, and to undo and reconceptualize the many naturalized qualities attributed to women and men, what counts as knowledge, and the relation between knowledge and practice. Feminist struggles have been important not only for their substantive achievements and goals, but for the process through which these have been sought; Dietz argues that feminist movements in the USA are a living repository of democratic norms and practices that have ?nearly ceased to be part of the politics of the United States? (1987, p. 16). Historical acco unts of Anglo American feminism typically distinguish between first wave (late nineteenth century to the First World War), second wave (1960 1980s) and third wave (1980s ) femin isms, although this periodizing risks simpli fication. For instance, although first wave feminism is known for campaigns to win women?s right to vote, these were part of broader concerns about women?s rights to education, paid employment, sexual freedom and financial self sufficiency (Blunt and Wills, 2000). Periodizing risks a second tendency: this is to code these stages within a narrative of progress or development, against which feminisms in other parts of the world can be judged as advanced or, more typically, back wards (Shih, 2002). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Modern Western feminism was constituted in relation to the abstract individualism that is the basis for social and political inclusion within liberalism. Women have been excluded from many of the supposedly univer sal norms and claims of liberalism, but have used these norms to struggle for inclusion within them. Insofar as they have shared this experience of exclusion with other social groups, this has offered grounds for alliances. Nonetheless, Western feminism has been criticized for its own exclusions, concealed by its universalizing claims about women?s experience. Criticisms of feminism as white, middle class, heterosexist and Western were prominent in the 1980s and 1990s, and have led to attempts to understand both the specificity and diversity of women?s experi ences. It is not simply that women?s experi ences differ depending on other aspects of their social locations; feminism as a political movement takes a different trajectory in different places, depending on how it articu lates with other political struggles. In the Philippines, as one example, the ?second wave? of women?s liberation dating from 1970 was closely articulated with the nationalist struggle against the collusion between US imperialists and landlord comprador bureaucrat capital ist allies within the Philippines (West, 1992). As Morris (2006) writes: ? ??Politics?? is irredu cibly plural . . . What I have in mind is not simply the diversity of [feminist] groups, movements and ??positions?? that can be mapped as active at any given time around the world, but rather the intrinsically dynamic, unpredictably complex and consequential nature of political struggle itself; in failing as well as in succeeding, political practices alter the contexts in which they occur ... [W]e have little to gain from polemically reducing our vision to one project . . . We have too rich a past from which to learn, and too much to do in the future.? But this also means that the translatability across these myriad feminist struggles can no longer be taken for granted, and that Western feminists must ?stop positing themselves as objects of mimesis? (Shih, 2002, p. 116) and do the hard work of fully contextualizing the specificity of feminist social movements in particular times and places. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Feminism has always been a spatial practice: to disrupt traditional organizations of space, to forge productive dislocations and to reconfig ure conventions of scale: ?The dichotomy between the private and the public is central to almost two centuries of feminist writing and political struggle; it is, ultimately, what the feminist movement is about? (Pateman, 1989, p. 118: see also private and public spheres). The feminist slogan, ?the personal is the polit ical?, expresses a refusal to accept both conven tional boundaries between public and private, and scalar distinctions between the body and spaces of politics (see feminist geographies). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The term ?postfeminist? emerged in the 1990s, in part to signal differences among women, the fluidity of gender categories and the challenges of building a social movement through the singular identification as women. But there are many options for reformulating feminism in terms other than postfeminism, for instance, as transnational, transversal, as a solidarity movement articulated through obliga tions of justice rooted in the interdependencies of material conditions in specific places, or as ?an empty signifier? that gathers struggles over the production of difference through polit ical struggle rather than identification (Pratt, 2004). It certainly would be a mistake to assume that feminist struggles have been won. Although women make up roughly half the labour force in many countries, the majority of women in most countries continue to work in traditionally female jobs, for significantly lower wages than men. Reproductive rights won through second wave feminist activism are under attack in the USA, and the division of domestic labour is largely unchanged in many countries. The devo lution of care under neo liberalism has added to women?s work responsibilities at home, and the increasing militarization of daily life (cf. militarism) in many countries has led to re masculization and intensified regulation of heteronormativity. gp (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Blunt and Wills (2000); Pratt (2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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