Johnson, C.Y (author / USDA Forest Service and University of Georgia), Horan, P.M. (author / University of Georgia), and Pepper , W. (author / USDA Forest Service, Athens, Georgia)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1997
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 104 Document Number: C09009
Flora, Cornelia Butler (author / Department of Sociology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA) and Department of Sociology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1992
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 90 Document Number: C06478
Kloppenburg, Jack, Jr. (author / Department of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI) and Department of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1991
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 90 Document Number: C06474
James F. Evans Collection, As a result of environmental and agrarian activism and of academic critique, a substantial amount of space is available now for moving agricultural technoscience onto new trajectories. A critical rural sociology has played a key role in pushing forward the deconstructive project that has been instrumental in creating this space. And rural sociologists can be active agents in the reconstruction of the alternative science that must emerge from "actually existing" science and that must be developed if there is to be a truly alternative agriculture. But to be effective in this effort we need to enlarge not only the canon of our colleagues in the natural sciences, but our own canon as well. This article suggests that the theoretical resources for such reconstruction are available in contemporary sociological and feminist interpretations of science. Material resources for the reconstruction of a "successor science" are to be found in the "local knowledge" that is continually produced and reproduced by farmers and agricultural workers. Articulations and complementarities between theoretical resources are suggested and potentially productive research areas are outlined. (original)
Phase II, Raises several questions about prevailing conception of adopters and adoption behavior. Specifically, the author argues that research has failed to take into account variations in farming environments, natural physical parameters, and the social organization of resources as factors influencing peasant farmers' adoption behavior. More attention ought to be given to the location specific constraints, characteristics and requirements of specific technologies, and to the general issue of whether identical technologies are equivalent innovations in different agro-climatic environments. Drawing on data from several villages in Nepal, the author shows that rates of adoption are location specific, that is, influenced more by agro-climatic conditions and socioeconomic organization than by inter-village differences in propensity to innovate. Ecological suitably and varying levels of farm resources have a direct effect on technology utilization.
