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PNS0214

Critical perspectives on agrarian change

This PhD course aims to give PhD students an overview of critical agrarian studies, focusing on both historical and contemporary agrarian change. The main focus is understanding agrarian change and its drivers, how farmers have reacted, and how change has affected rural livelihoods, the environment, and food security from the era of agricultural modernization and industrialization, beginning in the mid-1800s, through the current restructuring of agro-food systems around the world. Hence, this course will deal with varied transformations in different time periods and places in the Global South and North (building on both teachers’ and students’ familiarity with cases), and theoretical debates about the significance of these transformations, tracing how discussions in agrarian political economy have evolved over the last (roughly) 150 years.

This course is conceived primarily as a theoretical course, helping participating PhD students to comprehend concepts both within agrarian political economy – such as primitive accumulation, agricultural production and labor relations, food regimes, food sovereignty, agro-ecology, and financialization – and from the recent "more than human" turn in agrarian studies – such as abstract social nature, plantliness, affordances and the plantationocene. Importantly, the course will also cover how debates around these concepts inform discussions on such topics as food security, the green revolution, climate change and environmental degradation, and the future of agriculture. Finally, the farmer perspective will also be taken into account in this course, and how it can be related to the concepts and debates mentioned above.

PNS0214 Critical perspectives on agrarian change, 7.5 Credits

Syllabus approved

2020-12-18

Subjects

Other Social Science Landscape Planning Agricultural History Rural Development Environmental Communication Landscape Architecture

Education cycle

No Level Indicated

Grading scale

Pass / Failed The requirements for attaining different grades are described in the course assessment criteria which are contained in a supplement to the course syllabus. Current information on assessment criteria shall be made available at the start of the course.

Language

English

Prior knowledge

Admittance to a PhD program.

Objectives

Upon completion of the course, the student should:

- be well acquainted with the major theoretical approaches for understanding agrarian change, including classical political economy approaches and the recent ‘more than human’ turn in critical agrarian studies;
- acquire a detailed understanding of the drivers of agrarian change in the era of industrialization/modernization and how these drivers have played out in different times and places;
- be able to connect theories of agrarian change to other important trends/debates, including food security, the green revolution, and environmental degradation/climate change;
- have a deeper understanding of the farmer perspective, i.e. how farmers are impacted by and react to broader trends with respect to agrarian change.

Content

This PhD course aims to give PhD students an overview of critical agrarian studies, focusing on both historical and contemporary agrarian change. The main focus is understanding agrarian change and its drivers, how farmers have reacted, and how change has affected rural livelihoods, the environment, and food security from the era of agricultural modernization and industrialization, beginning in the mid-1800s, through the current restructuring of agro-food systems around the world. Hence, this course will deal with varied transformations in different time periods and places in the Global South and North (building on both teachers’ and students’ familiarity with cases), and theoretical debates about the significance of these transformations, tracing how discussions in agrarian political economy have evolved over the last (roughly) 150 years.

This course is conceived primarily as a theoretical course, helping participating PhD students to comprehend concepts both within agrarian political economy – such as primitive accumulation, agricultural production and labor relations, food regimes, food sovereignty, agro-ecology, and financialization – and from the recent "more than human" turn in agrarian studies – such as abstract social nature, plantliness, affordances and the plantationocene. Importantly, the course will also cover how debates around these concepts inform discussions on such topics as food security, the green revolution, climate change and environmental degradation, and the future of agriculture. Finally, the farmer perspective will also be taken into account in this course, and how it can be related to the concepts and debates mentioned above.

Formats and requirements for examination

Examination will consist of participation in mandatory seminars and the submission of written reflections and presentations on the reading material.

Additional information

Course leaders:
Klara Fischer (klara.fischer@slu.se)
Brian Kuns (brian.kuns@slu.se)

The course will consist of in-class instruction in Uppsala during week 40 (October 4-7, 2021), followed by an online, 2-hour seminar every second week until the course ends in week 46 (i.e. one seminar each during week 42, 44, and 46, with the course ending on Nov 19, 2021).

The course is offered by the research school Society and Landscape (SL) at the Department of Urban and Rural Development, SLU.