Special Symposium of Agriculture and Human Values
Guest editors:
Michaela Hoffelmeyer, PhD Candidate, Rural Sociology, Penn State
Kathleen Sexsmith, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology, Penn State
Leland Glenna, Professor of Rural Sociology and Science, Technology, and Society, Penn State
Open call for papers:
This special symposium invites articles exploring the diversity of family farming models in light of the UN Decade of Family Farming (2019-2028), which was declared to celebrate the roles of small family farmers in achieving sustainable rural development. A plurality of family farming models worldwide undertakes environmental, social, and economic practices that present alternatives to global corporate agribusiness. Examples include indigenous communities, pastoralists, communitarian and intentional farm communities, women-owned farms, racial and ethnic minority-run farms, first generation farmers, and others. Their agricultural practices and models are crucial to achieving sustainable agriculture, yet are often overshadowed by the Western, industrialized agricultural system and its accompanying discourse of a ‘family farm’ as a nuclear, often white, inter-generational family farming unit.
This symposium examining the multiplicity of family farming models is timely at the current conjuncture in the global political economy of the agri-food system. The rise of right-wing populism around the world has fomented colonial, racist, and heteronormative ideals in rural and agricultural areas. This populism has restricted public understanding of the diversity of family farming by promoting the image of patriarchal family farms. Moreover, the invocation of “family farms” as an ideal type of agriculture obscures the realities of farming life and deters the recognition of alternative agrarianisms. Indeed, family farm operations of all types can and do make essential contributions to achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
The global Decade of the Family Farm is a timely moment for questioning how this model has been conceived and applied for decades, and for celebrating the multiple forms of family farming that contribute to sustainable agriculture. Articles in this special symposium might examine the following topics or other related issues:
Political economy of the emergence of the ideal type family farm as white, male-led, and heteronormative model in the U.S. and other western industrialized contexts;
Historical analysis of alternative family farm models in western industrialized and other global contexts;
Alternative agrarianisms and sustainable agriculture among Black, immigrant, indigenous, queer, polygamous, or communitarian farm families;
Migrant, refugee, and landless labor on family farms;
Migration, remittances, and family farm viability;
Patriarchy/ matriarchy and family farms;
Production/reproduction of Western family farm discourses for university, school, and extension education models and their implications;
Effects of the idealization of the family farm model for labor conditions, healthcare, childcare, or other social protections;
Relationship between family farming and industrialization and concentration in the global agrifood system.
Other topics related to this call for papers.
If you wish to submit a paper to the special symposium, please submit a 500-word abstract detailing your article’s title, purpose, methodology, key findings, and significance to the symposium guest editors at kjs95@psu.edu by July 15th 2022. Agriculture and Human Values accepts original research articles, field reports, and discussion papers. All paper formats will be considered although original research articles are preferred. More information can be found here: https://www.springer.com/journal/10460
Deadlines:
Abstracts: July 15th, 2022
Authors notified of invitation to submit a paper: August 1st, 2022
Complete first drafts due to editors: December 15th, 2022
Reviews sent to authors: Spring 2023
Selection of final papers and publication: Fall 2023/Winter 2024