ABSTRACTWHAT IS A FARM? AGRICULTURE, DISCOURSE, AND PRODUCING LANDSCAPES IN ST. ELIZABETH, JAMAICAByGary R. SchnakenbergThis dissertation research examined the operation, circulation, and articulation of discourses associated with contemporary globalization in producing the agricultural landscape of an area of rural Jamaica. As a part of the world subject to European colonial domination from the time of Columbus until the 1960s and then as an independent small island state in an unevenly globalizing world, Jamaica has been a place upon which operations of unequal power relationships have long played. The historical experiences of a sugar plantation economy based upon brutal chattel slavery shaped characteristics of the society that emerged from that history, and left imprints on the ethnocultural makeup of the population, the orientation of the country's economic activities, and many beliefs, values, and attitudes of Jamaican people. A great many of these people are smallholder agriculturalists, a livelihood strategy followed by a great many in former colonial places throughout the world. In many cases, ideas, notions, and practices about how farms and farming &lsquoought-to-be&rsquo in such places results from the operations and workings of discourse.Understood in the manner advanced by Michel Foucault, &lsquodiscourse&rsquo refers to meanings and knowledge circulated among people and result in practices that in turn produce and re-produce those meanings and knowledge. Discourses are forces that define what is right, correct, what can be known, and produce &lsquothe world as it is.&rsquo As such, they also have material effects, in that what it means &lsquo to farm&rsquo results in an agricultural landscape that emerges from those meanings. In the case of Jamaica, the meanings of farms and farming have been shaped by discursive elements of contemporary globalization, in particular modernity, competition, and individualism. The articulation and operation of these discourses have produced effects on the agricultural landscape in south St Elizabeth parish on Jamaica's south coast, an area known throughout the country for the production of vegetables.This research employed a political ecology approach, in that it sought to identify and analyze the ways in which operations of power at different scales - in this case, resulting primarily from discourse&mdash influenced decisions made by farmers regarding how they interacted with their environment. As the operation and circulation of discourses, as well as their articulation by farmers themselves, was the topic of investigation, this political ecology undertook a discourse analysis.Utilizing mixed methods, my research in Jamaica included qualitative interviews with both smallholder farmers and non-farmers associated with agriculture, documentary and archival research, and collecting data regarding both current and historical Jamaican agricultural production and provenance of produce for sale in grocery stores. The research revealed that smallholder farmers are frequently characterized as backward in development and government circles, despite evidence to the contrary. Also, ideas of modernity strongly associated with technology use influence farmer decision-making regarding agricultural practices, even as the financial burdens of those decisions are identified as a challenge they face. Both these broad findings can be related to Jamaica's historical context as a former `plantation society' long under colonial domination. In addition, the practices promoted by modernist discourses further marginalize and disadvantage many smallholder farmers, not only by economic means, but also through environmental and health impacts resulting from widespread use of agrochemicals. At the same time, the potential for alternative paths and existence of &lsquo sites of resistance&rsquo to these dominant discourses exist in Jamaica that present more sustainable possibilities for smallholders.Although south St Elizabeth parish in Jamaica is the location of the case study featured in this dissertation research, the findings have implications for the wider post-colonial world. As in Jamaica, smallholder farmers in many such places suffer from a dualism in which export commodities usually produced on large holdings receive attention and support at the expense of small producers of locally consumed food staples. International development agencies and university trained experts often apply agricultural techniques not suited to local ecosystems or socioeconomic conditions and otherwise try to &lsquofix&rsquo problems in places discursively placed as underdeveloped. This research serves to provide both a critique and potential alternatives more sensitive to local conditions and circumstances.
Read
