• Private land tenure has resulted in the intensive clear-cutting of forest lands on Vancouver Is... more • Private land tenure has resulted in the intensive clear-cutting of forest lands on Vancouver Island. • Neoliberal forestry legislation deregulated forestry activities on private land leading to intensive harvesting regime. • Policies covering private forest land on the British Columbia coast are only possible because of settler-colonial land grants dating back to the 19 th century. This paper examines how colonial land grants and the neoliberalization of forestry policy have enabled an aggressive harvesting regime on a massive tract of private land on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. We detail the intensity of industrial logging activities of three forestry companies-Island Timberlands, TimberWest, and Western Forest Products-on private land on Vancouver Island. We draw on 11 years of harvesting volume records from the public British Columbia Harvest Billing System to examine the rate of harvest on private land by the aforementioned companies. The paper maps the harvesting volumes we report in relation to forest land ownership and the boundaries of land grants to demonstrate the enduring settler-colonial character of fee simple forest land and industrial harvesting activities. We argue that neoliberal legislation introduced in 2003 deregulated forestry operations on private lands, facilitating the harvesting regimes we detail. We further suggest that settler-colonial enclosures set in motion by the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway Company land grants starting in 1884 have been foundational to the establishment and management of private forest lands on Vancouver Island and continue to represent barriers for Indigenous communities as they assert their rights and title to private forest land.
In 1873, on the edge of empire, over 800,000 hectares of land was reserved as payment for a futur... more In 1873, on the edge of empire, over 800,000 hectares of land was reserved as payment for a future rail line on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. This land was granted to the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway Company in 1887, sold to industrial capital in the twentieth century, and then finance capital in the twenty-first century. Intensive logging has been the constant. Indigenous nations have never relented in their opposition to the rail deal. This article historicizes land grabbing through unpacking the rounds of political-economic and settler control of land that rest on the bedrock of the original colonial enclosure.
Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2020
This article reviews Gillian Hart’s unique anticolonial Marxism, which she deftly deploys to expl... more This article reviews Gillian Hart’s unique anticolonial Marxism, which she deftly deploys to explore questions regarding development, capitalism, and the post-apartheid trajectories of South Africa, focusing in particular on the articulations of race, class, gender, and nationalism therein. We argue that Hart’s careful engagement with Gramsci’s work enables her to be particularly attentive to both materiality and meaning in particular historical and geographical conjunctures. In so doing, we focus on how Hart enrolls and furthers understandings of articulation, language, and populism to develop a conjunctural analysis that is sensitive to the differentiation and politics of racialized capitalism.
This paper develops a genealogy of concrete labour, paying particular attention to debates within... more This paper develops a genealogy of concrete labour, paying particular attention to debates within marxist, feminist-marxist and Black feminist writings. Our argument pivots around the dual character of (re)productive activities and an argument that the concrete is both an "aspect" of labour and the concentration of many different relations. We begin with a critique of the false universalisms in certain invocations of the concrete, noting how the far right has mobilised this "false concrete" in the figure of the people. Teasing out long-standing debates over the dual character of labour enables us instead to better understand the social differentiation within concrete lived activity. Through discussing the internal relations that constitute the concrete as labour and method we propose a critical strategy that challenges false universalisms, provides a way to understand relationally defined positionalities, and that is also a place from which to struggle and organise.
Starting in the mid 2000s, a financial asset management company and institutional investors began... more Starting in the mid 2000s, a financial asset management company and institutional investors began to invest in timberlands in British Columbia, Canada's most western province. In a period of political economic crisis, investors looked to real assets— " dirt and trees " in the words of one research participant—as a means of accumulating capital through securing access to huge parcels of the most productive and valuable forestland in North America. This article analyses these investments as a socioecological fix for finance capital suggesting that investments in land represent a means for capital and the state to negotiate moments of crisis. The article complicates existing accounts of fixes by demonstrating how the survival of capital in a settler context is fully dependent on an ongoing settler‐ colonial project of separating Indigenous people from their land base. The article focuses on the explicitly " private " nature of the land under examination and how this is central to the strategies of investors, the state's deregulation of forest policies, and the marginalization of First Nations' claims to land. The article demonstrates that in settler contexts, discussions of fixes need to be much more attentive to the historic and enduring colonial threads woven through investments in land.
This article examines how farm interns, as a new group of nonwaged
agricultural workers, have com... more This article examines how farm interns, as a new group of nonwaged agricultural workers, have come to support marginally or non-profitable agro-ecological farms in Ontario, Canada. Are farm interns potential agents of social change alongside farmers or are they being recruited onto farms because of the precarious economic situation of their agro-ecological farm hosts? I engage with this question through drawing on debates in agrarian studies arguing that farm interns should be understood as a contemporary manifestation and negotiation of the agrarian question that re-works a number of historical agrarian trends.
This article, the second of two, argues that conceptualizing the socioecological fix involves und... more This article, the second of two, argues that conceptualizing the socioecological fix involves understanding how fixed capital, as a produced production force, can transform the socioecological conditions and forces of production while also securing the hegemony of particular social hierarchies, power relations, and institutions. We stress that fixed capital is inherently political-ecological in its constitution and how it shapes socioecological processes of landscape transformation. Fixed capital necessarily congeals socioecological materials and processes and can be understood as a produced form of nature tied to the circulation of value and the deployment of social labor. Fixed capital is therefore inherently metabolic and internalizes and transforms socioecologies. We also discuss the fixing of capital within socioecological landscapes as processes involving both the formal and real subsumption of nature. We emphasize the dual role of fixed capital formation in shaping the socioecological conditions and forces of production and, more broadly, of everyday life. Thus, we argue, fixed capital formation as a metabolic process cannot be fully conceptualized in narrowly economic terms. We turn to Gramsci and some recent work in political ecology to argue that socioecological fixes need to be understood in ideological terms and specifically in the establishment and contestation of hegemony.
Recently, growing numbers of interns, apprentices, and volunteers are being recruited to work sea... more Recently, growing numbers of interns, apprentices, and volunteers are being recruited to work seasonally on ecologically oriented and organic farms across the global north. To date, there has been very little research examining these emergent forms of non-waged work. In this paper, we analyze the relationships between non-waged agricultural work and the economic circum- stances of small- to medium-size farms and the non-eco- nomic ambitions of farm operators. We do so through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of farmers’ responses to two surveys we conducted of farmers using non-waged workers in Ontario, Canada. We situate our analysis within debates on the agrarian question, which we contend requires an account for both the economic and non-eco- nomic dimensions of new forms of non-waged work on farms. We suggest that many ecologically oriented farm operators are struggling financially and report low gross on-farm revenues and personal incomes. We argue that in addition to relying on off-farm incomes and self-exploita- tion, many farms are managing to persist in a challenging economic climate through their use of intern, apprentice, and volunteer labor. However, we also suggest that the growth of non-waged work on farms is not simply being driven by economic processes but also a series of non- economic relationships focused on non-institutional farmer training, the pursuit of sustainability, and social movement building. We suggest, the ‘‘economic’’ and ‘‘non-eco- nomic’’ dimensions of internships, apprenticeships, and forms of volunteerism sit uneasily alongside of one another, generating questions about the politics, ethics, and sustainability of non-waged work and ecological farming.
Antonio Gramsci's writings provide a valuable conceptual and political sensibility for critical a... more Antonio Gramsci's writings provide a valuable conceptual and political sensibility for critical approaches to nature. In this editorial introduction to a theme issue on Gramscian Political Ecologies we establish the broad contours to such an approach, stressing Gramsci's integral marxism and commitment to a transformative politics relevant to the contemporary moment. Subsequently, we provide an introduction to existing political ecological research inspired by Gramsci's wide-ranging writings. In order to stimulate future research, we question Gramsci's reflections on 'nature' in order to examine the embyonic possibilities and limitations therein. Gramsci, we suggest, provides stimulating commentary on the differentiated unity of nature and society: in part, this anticipates recent arguments on this subject. Similarly, we reflect on how Gramsci's conceptualization of hegemony relates to core issues within political ecology. Given the centrality of 'environmental issues' in the contemporary moment, it is necessary to consider how social groups enrol natures and environments (both material and symbolic) in their struggles for hegemony. We conclude the editorial by introducing the articles included in the theme issue.
This article attempts to empirically demonstrate how the struggle for bourgeois hegemony in depre... more This article attempts to empirically demonstrate how the struggle for bourgeois hegemony in depressionera British Columbia, Canada, was fought for through the production of new natures. Bringing together Antonio Gramsci's conceptualization of hegemony with marxist understandings of political ecology, I examine how the legitimacy of particular groups' dominance over subordinate groups and the survival of specific social relations was built and contested through the (re)making of the material-symbolic landscape. However, I also take seriously Stuart Hall's argument that we must take note of the multi-dimensional character of hegemony by paying attention to the entanglement of class, gender and ecological relations during the 1930s. In order to demonstrate these arguments I examine the economic, social, moral and ecological crisis that rippled across the socionatural fabric of B.C. during the depression years. I detail how the federal and provincial states responded to the interlaced crises of class, gender and ecological relations through launching a series of public works programs and training programs. These projects were intended to modernize the forestry industry and remake unemployed men in body and soul. In doing so, I demonstrate how ideologies regarding nature come to be both enrolled in the struggle for hegemony and materialized in the making of the forestscape. By weaving theoretical insights through the socionatural history of British Columbia, I demonstrate how a gramscian sensibility pushes us to take seriously the relationality of socionatural processes and the embededdness of concepts in material histories. 1 I use the word state in the plural to indicate the different tiers of formal government (municipal, provincial and federal). Following the general current of marxist state theory I see the state as the institutional congealing of a broader spectrum of social relations, which is rife with contradictions. The state is also relatively autonomous from wider social relations such as capital (see . However, the relation between capital and the state should not be privileged at the expense of failing to consider how relations such as gender come to bear on the constitution of the state.
In this article, I examine this nexus between the social and political meaning of unemployment an... more In this article, I examine this nexus between the social and political meaning of unemployment and the political responses that follow. I focus on Depression-era Vancouver and investigate the broad ideologies, representations and practices that contributed to the derision of the unemployed, which in turn, informed the establishment of rural relief camps that aimed to address the unemployment crisis of the 1930s. The social and political meaning of unemployment shaped the contours of the Federal Unemployment Relief Scheme, which housed men in work camps and aimed to both discipline and rehabilitate the unemployed. However, the relief camps were plagued by several contradictions exploited by the Relief Camp Workers Union, which constructed oppositional understandings of unemployment. In discussing the relationship between unemployment and relief I attend to questions of space, highlighting the urbanisation of unemployment and the ideological distinctions between the city and the country.
What is the relationship between unpaid and non- waged work and the survival, and even growth, of... more What is the relationship between unpaid and non- waged work and the survival, and even growth, of small- and medium-scale farms? This research brief examines this question through examining the growth of internships and volunteer positions (non-waged work) on ecologically oriented farms, with a focus on trends in Ontario, Canada. Through reporting on the qualitative and quantitative findings of our research, we track the decline of family labor throughout the broader agriculture sector and the emergence of new forms of non-waged work on ecological farms. We focus on the continuities and changes at play in shifting forms of farm work and discuss the new forms of knowledge exchange occurring on farms, the precarious economic situation of many farms, and the gendering of non-waged work. We conclude the brief by raising several challenging questions regarding the politics and sustainability of farmers’ dependency on interns and volunteers.
This article examines the history of women's reforestation work in British Columbia (BC), Canada ... more This article examines the history of women's reforestation work in British Columbia (BC), Canada in the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout the era, white working-class women were employed by the government to plant trees on cut-over land. Women's work in BC's forestlands is often obscured by a triumphal discourse that celebrates the rise of white, middle-class contractors and workers as a progressive force in the forestry sector. Through oral histories and interviews with members of the British Columbia Forest Service and the women employed on government planting projects, this article discusses the social positioning of women within the history of reforestation. Building on the work of Geoff Mann and a number of feminist interventions, the article examines how the categories of 'quality' and 'quantity' played an ideological role in framing women as an atavistic presence in the industry. Finally, following Walter Benjamin's method of historical study, the article rethinks common negative portrayals of women's labour, through considering the progressive moments found within their work and the challenges the women posed to post-war gendered norms of life and work.
• Private land tenure has resulted in the intensive clear-cutting of forest lands on Vancouver Is... more • Private land tenure has resulted in the intensive clear-cutting of forest lands on Vancouver Island. • Neoliberal forestry legislation deregulated forestry activities on private land leading to intensive harvesting regime. • Policies covering private forest land on the British Columbia coast are only possible because of settler-colonial land grants dating back to the 19 th century. This paper examines how colonial land grants and the neoliberalization of forestry policy have enabled an aggressive harvesting regime on a massive tract of private land on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. We detail the intensity of industrial logging activities of three forestry companies-Island Timberlands, TimberWest, and Western Forest Products-on private land on Vancouver Island. We draw on 11 years of harvesting volume records from the public British Columbia Harvest Billing System to examine the rate of harvest on private land by the aforementioned companies. The paper maps the harvesting volumes we report in relation to forest land ownership and the boundaries of land grants to demonstrate the enduring settler-colonial character of fee simple forest land and industrial harvesting activities. We argue that neoliberal legislation introduced in 2003 deregulated forestry operations on private lands, facilitating the harvesting regimes we detail. We further suggest that settler-colonial enclosures set in motion by the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway Company land grants starting in 1884 have been foundational to the establishment and management of private forest lands on Vancouver Island and continue to represent barriers for Indigenous communities as they assert their rights and title to private forest land.
In 1873, on the edge of empire, over 800,000 hectares of land was reserved as payment for a futur... more In 1873, on the edge of empire, over 800,000 hectares of land was reserved as payment for a future rail line on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. This land was granted to the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway Company in 1887, sold to industrial capital in the twentieth century, and then finance capital in the twenty-first century. Intensive logging has been the constant. Indigenous nations have never relented in their opposition to the rail deal. This article historicizes land grabbing through unpacking the rounds of political-economic and settler control of land that rest on the bedrock of the original colonial enclosure.
Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2020
This article reviews Gillian Hart’s unique anticolonial Marxism, which she deftly deploys to expl... more This article reviews Gillian Hart’s unique anticolonial Marxism, which she deftly deploys to explore questions regarding development, capitalism, and the post-apartheid trajectories of South Africa, focusing in particular on the articulations of race, class, gender, and nationalism therein. We argue that Hart’s careful engagement with Gramsci’s work enables her to be particularly attentive to both materiality and meaning in particular historical and geographical conjunctures. In so doing, we focus on how Hart enrolls and furthers understandings of articulation, language, and populism to develop a conjunctural analysis that is sensitive to the differentiation and politics of racialized capitalism.
This paper develops a genealogy of concrete labour, paying particular attention to debates within... more This paper develops a genealogy of concrete labour, paying particular attention to debates within marxist, feminist-marxist and Black feminist writings. Our argument pivots around the dual character of (re)productive activities and an argument that the concrete is both an "aspect" of labour and the concentration of many different relations. We begin with a critique of the false universalisms in certain invocations of the concrete, noting how the far right has mobilised this "false concrete" in the figure of the people. Teasing out long-standing debates over the dual character of labour enables us instead to better understand the social differentiation within concrete lived activity. Through discussing the internal relations that constitute the concrete as labour and method we propose a critical strategy that challenges false universalisms, provides a way to understand relationally defined positionalities, and that is also a place from which to struggle and organise.
Starting in the mid 2000s, a financial asset management company and institutional investors began... more Starting in the mid 2000s, a financial asset management company and institutional investors began to invest in timberlands in British Columbia, Canada's most western province. In a period of political economic crisis, investors looked to real assets— " dirt and trees " in the words of one research participant—as a means of accumulating capital through securing access to huge parcels of the most productive and valuable forestland in North America. This article analyses these investments as a socioecological fix for finance capital suggesting that investments in land represent a means for capital and the state to negotiate moments of crisis. The article complicates existing accounts of fixes by demonstrating how the survival of capital in a settler context is fully dependent on an ongoing settler‐ colonial project of separating Indigenous people from their land base. The article focuses on the explicitly " private " nature of the land under examination and how this is central to the strategies of investors, the state's deregulation of forest policies, and the marginalization of First Nations' claims to land. The article demonstrates that in settler contexts, discussions of fixes need to be much more attentive to the historic and enduring colonial threads woven through investments in land.
This article examines how farm interns, as a new group of nonwaged
agricultural workers, have com... more This article examines how farm interns, as a new group of nonwaged agricultural workers, have come to support marginally or non-profitable agro-ecological farms in Ontario, Canada. Are farm interns potential agents of social change alongside farmers or are they being recruited onto farms because of the precarious economic situation of their agro-ecological farm hosts? I engage with this question through drawing on debates in agrarian studies arguing that farm interns should be understood as a contemporary manifestation and negotiation of the agrarian question that re-works a number of historical agrarian trends.
This article, the second of two, argues that conceptualizing the socioecological fix involves und... more This article, the second of two, argues that conceptualizing the socioecological fix involves understanding how fixed capital, as a produced production force, can transform the socioecological conditions and forces of production while also securing the hegemony of particular social hierarchies, power relations, and institutions. We stress that fixed capital is inherently political-ecological in its constitution and how it shapes socioecological processes of landscape transformation. Fixed capital necessarily congeals socioecological materials and processes and can be understood as a produced form of nature tied to the circulation of value and the deployment of social labor. Fixed capital is therefore inherently metabolic and internalizes and transforms socioecologies. We also discuss the fixing of capital within socioecological landscapes as processes involving both the formal and real subsumption of nature. We emphasize the dual role of fixed capital formation in shaping the socioecological conditions and forces of production and, more broadly, of everyday life. Thus, we argue, fixed capital formation as a metabolic process cannot be fully conceptualized in narrowly economic terms. We turn to Gramsci and some recent work in political ecology to argue that socioecological fixes need to be understood in ideological terms and specifically in the establishment and contestation of hegemony.
Recently, growing numbers of interns, apprentices, and volunteers are being recruited to work sea... more Recently, growing numbers of interns, apprentices, and volunteers are being recruited to work seasonally on ecologically oriented and organic farms across the global north. To date, there has been very little research examining these emergent forms of non-waged work. In this paper, we analyze the relationships between non-waged agricultural work and the economic circum- stances of small- to medium-size farms and the non-eco- nomic ambitions of farm operators. We do so through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of farmers’ responses to two surveys we conducted of farmers using non-waged workers in Ontario, Canada. We situate our analysis within debates on the agrarian question, which we contend requires an account for both the economic and non-eco- nomic dimensions of new forms of non-waged work on farms. We suggest that many ecologically oriented farm operators are struggling financially and report low gross on-farm revenues and personal incomes. We argue that in addition to relying on off-farm incomes and self-exploita- tion, many farms are managing to persist in a challenging economic climate through their use of intern, apprentice, and volunteer labor. However, we also suggest that the growth of non-waged work on farms is not simply being driven by economic processes but also a series of non- economic relationships focused on non-institutional farmer training, the pursuit of sustainability, and social movement building. We suggest, the ‘‘economic’’ and ‘‘non-eco- nomic’’ dimensions of internships, apprenticeships, and forms of volunteerism sit uneasily alongside of one another, generating questions about the politics, ethics, and sustainability of non-waged work and ecological farming.
Antonio Gramsci's writings provide a valuable conceptual and political sensibility for critical a... more Antonio Gramsci's writings provide a valuable conceptual and political sensibility for critical approaches to nature. In this editorial introduction to a theme issue on Gramscian Political Ecologies we establish the broad contours to such an approach, stressing Gramsci's integral marxism and commitment to a transformative politics relevant to the contemporary moment. Subsequently, we provide an introduction to existing political ecological research inspired by Gramsci's wide-ranging writings. In order to stimulate future research, we question Gramsci's reflections on 'nature' in order to examine the embyonic possibilities and limitations therein. Gramsci, we suggest, provides stimulating commentary on the differentiated unity of nature and society: in part, this anticipates recent arguments on this subject. Similarly, we reflect on how Gramsci's conceptualization of hegemony relates to core issues within political ecology. Given the centrality of 'environmental issues' in the contemporary moment, it is necessary to consider how social groups enrol natures and environments (both material and symbolic) in their struggles for hegemony. We conclude the editorial by introducing the articles included in the theme issue.
This article attempts to empirically demonstrate how the struggle for bourgeois hegemony in depre... more This article attempts to empirically demonstrate how the struggle for bourgeois hegemony in depressionera British Columbia, Canada, was fought for through the production of new natures. Bringing together Antonio Gramsci's conceptualization of hegemony with marxist understandings of political ecology, I examine how the legitimacy of particular groups' dominance over subordinate groups and the survival of specific social relations was built and contested through the (re)making of the material-symbolic landscape. However, I also take seriously Stuart Hall's argument that we must take note of the multi-dimensional character of hegemony by paying attention to the entanglement of class, gender and ecological relations during the 1930s. In order to demonstrate these arguments I examine the economic, social, moral and ecological crisis that rippled across the socionatural fabric of B.C. during the depression years. I detail how the federal and provincial states responded to the interlaced crises of class, gender and ecological relations through launching a series of public works programs and training programs. These projects were intended to modernize the forestry industry and remake unemployed men in body and soul. In doing so, I demonstrate how ideologies regarding nature come to be both enrolled in the struggle for hegemony and materialized in the making of the forestscape. By weaving theoretical insights through the socionatural history of British Columbia, I demonstrate how a gramscian sensibility pushes us to take seriously the relationality of socionatural processes and the embededdness of concepts in material histories. 1 I use the word state in the plural to indicate the different tiers of formal government (municipal, provincial and federal). Following the general current of marxist state theory I see the state as the institutional congealing of a broader spectrum of social relations, which is rife with contradictions. The state is also relatively autonomous from wider social relations such as capital (see . However, the relation between capital and the state should not be privileged at the expense of failing to consider how relations such as gender come to bear on the constitution of the state.
In this article, I examine this nexus between the social and political meaning of unemployment an... more In this article, I examine this nexus between the social and political meaning of unemployment and the political responses that follow. I focus on Depression-era Vancouver and investigate the broad ideologies, representations and practices that contributed to the derision of the unemployed, which in turn, informed the establishment of rural relief camps that aimed to address the unemployment crisis of the 1930s. The social and political meaning of unemployment shaped the contours of the Federal Unemployment Relief Scheme, which housed men in work camps and aimed to both discipline and rehabilitate the unemployed. However, the relief camps were plagued by several contradictions exploited by the Relief Camp Workers Union, which constructed oppositional understandings of unemployment. In discussing the relationship between unemployment and relief I attend to questions of space, highlighting the urbanisation of unemployment and the ideological distinctions between the city and the country.
What is the relationship between unpaid and non- waged work and the survival, and even growth, of... more What is the relationship between unpaid and non- waged work and the survival, and even growth, of small- and medium-scale farms? This research brief examines this question through examining the growth of internships and volunteer positions (non-waged work) on ecologically oriented farms, with a focus on trends in Ontario, Canada. Through reporting on the qualitative and quantitative findings of our research, we track the decline of family labor throughout the broader agriculture sector and the emergence of new forms of non-waged work on ecological farms. We focus on the continuities and changes at play in shifting forms of farm work and discuss the new forms of knowledge exchange occurring on farms, the precarious economic situation of many farms, and the gendering of non-waged work. We conclude the brief by raising several challenging questions regarding the politics and sustainability of farmers’ dependency on interns and volunteers.
This article examines the history of women's reforestation work in British Columbia (BC), Canada ... more This article examines the history of women's reforestation work in British Columbia (BC), Canada in the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout the era, white working-class women were employed by the government to plant trees on cut-over land. Women's work in BC's forestlands is often obscured by a triumphal discourse that celebrates the rise of white, middle-class contractors and workers as a progressive force in the forestry sector. Through oral histories and interviews with members of the British Columbia Forest Service and the women employed on government planting projects, this article discusses the social positioning of women within the history of reforestation. Building on the work of Geoff Mann and a number of feminist interventions, the article examines how the categories of 'quality' and 'quantity' played an ideological role in framing women as an atavistic presence in the industry. Finally, following Walter Benjamin's method of historical study, the article rethinks common negative portrayals of women's labour, through considering the progressive moments found within their work and the challenges the women posed to post-war gendered norms of life and work.
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the articulations of race, class, gender, and nationalism therein. We argue that Hart’s careful engagement with Gramsci’s work enables her to be particularly attentive to both materiality and meaning in particular historical
and geographical conjunctures. In so doing, we focus on how Hart enrolls and furthers understandings of articulation, language, and populism to develop a conjunctural analysis that is sensitive to the differentiation and
politics of racialized capitalism.
agricultural workers, have come to support marginally or
non-profitable agro-ecological farms in Ontario, Canada. Are farm
interns potential agents of social change alongside farmers or are
they being recruited onto farms because of the precarious
economic situation of their agro-ecological farm hosts? I engage
with this question through drawing on debates in agrarian studies
arguing that farm interns should be understood as a
contemporary manifestation and negotiation of the agrarian
question that re-works a number of historical agrarian trends.
the articulations of race, class, gender, and nationalism therein. We argue that Hart’s careful engagement with Gramsci’s work enables her to be particularly attentive to both materiality and meaning in particular historical
and geographical conjunctures. In so doing, we focus on how Hart enrolls and furthers understandings of articulation, language, and populism to develop a conjunctural analysis that is sensitive to the differentiation and
politics of racialized capitalism.
agricultural workers, have come to support marginally or
non-profitable agro-ecological farms in Ontario, Canada. Are farm
interns potential agents of social change alongside farmers or are
they being recruited onto farms because of the precarious
economic situation of their agro-ecological farm hosts? I engage
with this question through drawing on debates in agrarian studies
arguing that farm interns should be understood as a
contemporary manifestation and negotiation of the agrarian
question that re-works a number of historical agrarian trends.