Grace, Margaret (author / Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Brisbane, Australia)
Format:
Paper
Publication Date:
1998-06-13
Published:
Australia
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 147 Document Number: C23536
Notes:
In "Conference Proceedings of the International Symposium on Learning Communities, Regional Sustainability and the Learning Society (June 13-20, 1998)." Edited by Ian Falk., 7 p., In Australia, as in other parts of the world, there is considerable interest in many quarters in the potential of new communication and information technologies to contribute significantly to the revitalization of regional communities. However, much remains to be understood about the social factors, which affect the success of innovative technology applications. Research conducted by the Queensland University of Technology indicates that gender significantly affects not only access and use of communication and information technologies, but also rural community development. By focusing on rural women's perspectives on communication issues, this research has revealed a need for the development of "soft" technologies to ensure that both social and economic development occurs in an integrated way in regional, rural and remote communities.
11pgs, Across the European Union, the receipt of agricultural subsidisation is increasingly being predicated on the delivery of public goods. In the English context, in particular, these changes can be seen in the redirection of money to the new Environmental Land Management scheme. Such shifts reflect the changed expectations that society is placing on agriculture—from something that provides one good (food) to something that supplies many (food, access to green spaces, healthy rural environment, flood resilience, reduced greenhouse gas emissions). Whilst the reasons behind the changes are well documented, understanding how these shifts are being experienced by the managers expected to deliver on these new expectations is less well understood. Bourdieu’s social theory and the good farmer concept are used to attend to this blind spot, and to provide timely insight as the country progresses along its public goods subsidy transition. Evidence from 65 interviews with 40 different interviewees (25 of whom gave a repeat interview) show a general willingness towards the transition to a public goods model of subsidisation. The optimisation and efficiency that has historically characterised the productivist identity is colouring the way managers are approaching the delivery of public goods. Ideas of land sparing and land sharing (and the farming preference for the former over the latter) are used to help understand these new social and attitudinal realities.
The author is Editor in chief of Water Policy and Senior Advisor at the Institute for Water Resources, US Army Corps of Engineering, Alexandria, Virginia, USA.
Rydell, Sarah A. (author), Harnack, Lisa J. (author), Oakes, J. Michael (author), Story, Mary (author), Jeffery, Robert W. (author), and French, Simone A. (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2008-12
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 158 Document Number: D07620
2 pages, Moving beyond single-issue organizing, advocacy, and inquiry, intersectionality has become widely popular in academic and activist circles. Despite intersectional scholar/activists' best attempts to separate problems on the basis of factors like race, gender, sexuality, or class, Patricia Hill Collins cautions that "Intersectionality is one of those fields in which so many people like the idea of intersectionality itself and therefore think they understand the field as well" (4). Collins reasons that for intersectionality to fully realize its power, its practitioners must critically reflect on its assumptions, epistemologies, and methods. Placing intersectionality in dialogue with several theoretical traditions, Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory offers a set of analytical tools for those wishing to develop intersectionality's capability to theorize social inequality in ways that would facilitate social change. "Without sustained self-reflection," Collins writes, "intersectionality will be unable to help anyone grapple with social change, including change within its own praxis" (6). Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory introduces and develops Collins' core concepts and guiding principles that demonstrate what it will take to develop intersectionality as a critical social theory.
