Growing Knowledge: An Evaluation of Apprenticeships on Small Farms in Western Washington

ABSTRACT: The graying of agriculture in the United States has raised concerns about the long-term viability of small farms, especially those that practice alternative growing techniques. Apprenticeships have emerged as a grassroots strategy to help educate the next generation of alternative farmers and reverse the trend of aging demographics. However, approaching apprentices solely as future farmers risks oversimplifying their importance to alternative food networks. This paper uses actor network theory to interpret ethnographic field research conducted with apprentices in the Puget Sound region of Washington State.  It argues that apprentices should be considered political actors in their own right. This perspective allows a deeper understanding of how apprenticeships operate, enabling analysis about how apprentices make diverse contributions to alternative agriculture despite facing complex legal, social, and economic challenges. As such, this paper works to expand understandings of how apprenticeships function within alternative food networks.

KEY WORDS: Alternative Food Networks (AFNs), alternative agriculture, apprenticeships, actor network theory

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Power and Privilege: A Discursive Analysis of Masculinity and Patriarchy in True Blood

ABSTRACT: This paper critically analyzes HBO’s True Blood series using a feminist geographic lens. While other academic research has likened the True Blood vampires struggle for political equality to that of the LGBTQ community, I argue that this series fails to uphold its transformative potential by reaffirming ideals of hegemonic masculinity and patriarchy. A critical analysis of the True Blood vampire, through a feminist framework, reveals nuances of strategic gendering and naturalization as it relates to vampire power versus human power. Power relations between vampires and humans uphold systems of hegemonic masculinity and patriarchy. I argue that the geographic setting of the series and the characterization of female vampires further demonstrate these associations. Through my discourse analysis, I conclude that, although vampirism may loosely mimic the LGBTQ rights movement within modern society, it is more closely representative of hegemonic norms of masculinity and patriarchy.

KEY WORDS: hegemonic masculinity, patriarchy, discourse analysis, transformative potential, LGBTQ

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White Demon Sophistry: Exploring the Gates Foundation’s Control Over the Production of Knowledge of Women of the Global South

ABSTRACT: This paper draws on critical development theory and post-colonial feminism to deconstruct how the discourse of the Gates Foundation functions as an important factor defining the relationship between the Global South and the Global North. My analysis looks at representations of women in real marketing materials from the Seattle-based NGO, The Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation. I argue that the Gates Foundation constructs reductive images of women through their roles as mother and farmers, without specificity, credible evidence or historical context, thereby reducing the agency and the complexity of the everyday lives of women from the Global South. These simplistic interpretations have real effects by informing the policy of development workers on the ground as well as Western interpretations of global systems and the roots of inequality.

KEY WORDS: critical development studies; women; Global South; The Gates Foundation

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Geography, Predatory Lending, and the State: A Path Toward Using GIS to Effectively Engage National Public Policy

ABSTRACT: As geographers continue to debate how and when they should produce research on important policy issues, I identify one gap in available approaches. I put forward a case study which looks at payday lending site location using GIS to highlight how direct engagement with national and state-level policy makers is an important endeavor. Furthermore, my research will show how critical geography research on predatory lending has played central role in recent legislation and how this legislation has driven an unprecedented reduction of predatory lending storefronts in Washington State and across the country. By re-conceptualizing how we think about geography work to including a policy public, I highlight one potential path for how geographers can further our understanding while still working to improve the condition of social inequalities. 

KEY WORDS: predatory lending, GIS, policy-relevant geography, military

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