Submitted by Youjin B. Chung on
Farming communities across the midwestern Corn Belt experienced dramatic structural transformations during the 20th century as new technologies and modes of production remade the landscape and shifted social relations. Today, novel livestock production systems and new infrastructure projects for energy development and climate change mitigation are being proposed that will continue to restructure physical and social relations in agrarian spaces. However, these policies and proposed changes to the landscape are not experienced by everyone in the same way. This project asks whether proposed infrastructure and policy developments that aim to achieve myriad sustainability goals may actually lock-in environmental injustices and reproduce existing inequities. In this research we are interested in how local institutions and individual stakeholders perceive, negotiate and react to regulatory approaches to agri-environmental protection and urban-rural planning as well as potential uneven impacts on farmers and citizens across racial, ethnic, and class differences. We are also interested in environmental outcomes associated with agroindustrial activities and discourses around local governance of shared resources.
We seek an undergraduate research assistant to analyze recent archival materials (such as local newspaper articles and Facebook posts) around key conservation and environmental policy events experienced by rural farming community members – primarily around proposed renewable energy projects, carbon dioxide pipelines, and hog confinement operations. In addition, the URA will help re-code some qualitative material, including interview transcripts, for relevant themes. This project is one component of a larger research program examining issues of agroindustrial transformation, rural/urban divide, and the political ecology of agriculture.
Learning outcomes: URAs can expect to gain skills and experience in research topics and methods in the fields of rural sociology, political ecology, and environmental policy. Students may also have the opportunity to become involved in other aspects of the research project and collaborate toward the production of analytical reviews and research articles, depending on interest.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Anaya Hall, PhD Candidate
The URA will be expected to:
- Identify, collect, and organize publicly available documents related to specific policies and events including: local newspaper articles, county Board of Supervisor meeting minutes, local agricultural and community group Facebook and blog posts, and public agency reports and white papers.
- With the guidance of the doctoral researcher and faculty member, identify key themes and assess community responses to policy proposals and key events.
- Participate in the production of research deliverables such as timelines, maps, and policy memos.
The ideal candidate will be comfortable working with remote and online work (required), standard research software suite (spreadsheets, word processing, cloud-based storage drives, etc.) (required); have taken coursework in agrifood systems (preferred); have familiarity with qualitative coding programs, such as MaxQDA (preferred, but not required); and have an interest in agriculture and food systems, renewable energy, and/or environmental policy and governance.