In Oregon, the effects of climate change on agriculture are already being felt. In the Northwest, climate change impacts agricultural pest pressure, especially insects, whose life cycles are tied directly to weather and climate. The goal of this research was to record and analyze Oregon fruit and vegetable farmers’ relationships...
This thesis investigates how beginning, women farmers, within in a women farmers’ network in the Willamette Valley, Oregon are accessing land and farming information. Using ethnographic, community-based research methods, I ask how land access mediates their ability to care for their land and soil. Are these farmers interested in fostering...
In this paper I discuss an ethnographic research project on identity embodiment among transgender and gender nonconforming punks in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S., with focus on the relationship between transgender/gender nonconforming identity and affiliation to DIY punk communities. Trans punks create a unique, hybridized subculture-based identity embodiment...
Food insecurity is a widely researched global public health issue, but students in higher education are frequently omitted from the data and are not widely recognized as a population that faces hunger. This thesis explores the college student population in relation to food insecurity and, in particular, their attempt to...
In this dissertation, I examine the process of building a Sámi food movement in northern Sweden. Using 15 months of ethnographic research that included observation of food events (n=100) and semi-structured interviews with food producers and activists (n=47), I describe how Sámi individuals are incorporating global food activism frameworks into...
After decades of expert-based modernization efforts that have had profound negative impacts on human and environmental health, Ecuador is currently pursuing a rights-based, participatory development paradigm known as sumak kawsay or "the good life". Despite its promises of inclusion and interculturality, this approach continues to rely on highly trained specialists,...
Food insecurity and hunger have become persistent problems resulting from an increase in impoverished segments of populations worldwide. For those not affected, the problem seems unnoticeable – it is happening somewhere else far away from them. However, in the United States, the number of people living below the poverty level...
In this era of free trade and globalization, food is traveling greater and greater distances to its consumers. This is causing small farms and small farmers all over the world to protest as their livelihood is being undercut by cheap agricultural commodities from outside their communities. In the Ecuadorian Andes,...
Sweden's changing demographics, due to recent migrations in the last fifty years, have affected the Swedish educational system and Sweden's language policy. Funding for special education in Sweden regarding its minority populations is on the decline. Previous forced linguistic assimilation has occurred in Sweden among the Finnish population to the...