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Articles 1 - 30 of 66
Full-Text Articles in Geography
Food Security And Dietary Diversity Among Conventional And Organic Tea-Smallholders In Central And Southern Sri Lanka, Nethmi Bathige
Food Security And Dietary Diversity Among Conventional And Organic Tea-Smallholders In Central And Southern Sri Lanka, Nethmi Bathige
Geography Honors Projects
In Sri Lanka, smallholder tea producers grow 70 percent of the country’s tea and bring in significant export earnings. However, when the country moved towards a more liberalized economy in the 1970s, growing cash crops such as tea for exports increased. As a result, there was a cut-back in food crop agriculture as farmers made space to grow more commercial crops. This research treats tea smallholder households as a unit of study. It looks at how economic status (average income and wealth rankings), level of crop diversity, and method of tea farming (organic or conventional) have influenced food security and …
Rural Resiliency: The Cause And Effect Of Minnesota's Maternal Health Crisis, Annabel Traudie Gregg
Rural Resiliency: The Cause And Effect Of Minnesota's Maternal Health Crisis, Annabel Traudie Gregg
Geography Honors Projects
The United States is experiencing a maternal health crisis that disproportionately affects those who give birth in rural communities. Rural birthing people have higher maternal mortality rates, increased risk of postpartum hemorrhage, non-indicated cesarean sections, and other adverse health outcomes. Despite the enhanced risks of rural birth, rural communities are losing access to hospital-based obstetric care at an unprecedented rate. Minnesota has vast rural territory, with one-fourth of its population living outside the urban sphere – making it a strategic area of study. As of July, 2021, 31% of Minnesota’s 91 rural hospitals were at risk of closing. The repercussions …
Bloodshed, Baptism, Beer: Racial Capitalism And Settler Colonialism On The Medieval Baltic, Nicholas Salvato
Bloodshed, Baptism, Beer: Racial Capitalism And Settler Colonialism On The Medieval Baltic, Nicholas Salvato
Geography Honors Projects
Scholarly and popular usage of the term “racial capitalism” has increased exponentially over the past decade, but the validity and implications of its use remain hotly contested. The late Cedric Robinson is the undisputed popularizer of this phrase and is referenced widely by both the slogan’s detractors and proponents. Despite this, little work has been done to engage with the core of his argument about racial capitalism: that capitalism is inalienably racial due to the racialism of the medieval European societies that spawned it. Debates over Robinson’s ideas have thus disregarded the substance of his deployment of the phrase and …
Dietary Power And Self-Determination Among Female Farmers In Burkina Faso: A Proposal For A Food Consumption Agency Metric, Zoe Tkaczyk
Geography Honors Projects
While food security is traditionally defined with four pillars, there are increasing calls for an additional two (agency and sustainability) so that we may more comprehensively conceptualize all dimensions of food security. However, the challenge is that it is difficult to effectively measure agency, a person’s control over their food system. Measuring women’s agency is especially critical in Africa South of the Sahara where women play prominent roles in farming and food preparation. This honors thesis explores the feasibility of creating a metric to measure agency within food systems and gender relations using data related to food security and dietary …
The Hidden Safety Net: Wild And Semi-Wild Plant Consumption And Nutrition Among Women Farmers In Southwestern Burkina Faso, Jane Servin
Geography Honors Projects
Mainstream development thinking suggests that increasing agricultural production will increase wealth and lead to improved diets. However, this perspective does not account for the complexities of food access, gender, and household dynamics. In Burkina Faso, development initiatives focus on increasing agricultural yield to alleviate hunger, but relatively wealthy areas are still experiencing widespread food insecurity. Wild plants play a key role in rural diets and serve as a nutritional safety net. This research investigates the use of wild plants for nutrition among women rice farmers and their households in Southwestern Burkina Faso. I examine the connections between native plant consumption, …
Pulling The Food System Up By The Roots: How Do We Build An Equitable Food System In The Twin Cities?, Aubrey A. Hagen
Pulling The Food System Up By The Roots: How Do We Build An Equitable Food System In The Twin Cities?, Aubrey A. Hagen
Geography Honors Projects
Prior to 2020, food insecurity was already a pervasive problem in the United States, with limited access to adequate, nutritious foods being linked to numerous poor physical and psychological outcomes. With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and civil uprisings in response to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence, the Twin Cities communities are facing overlapping crises that threaten individual and community wellbeing and food security. How do we build a just, equitable, and “crisis-proof” food system? Drawing from theoretical frameworks in social epidemiology and radical food geography, this paper assesses how the local food system and community food insecurity in …
Covid Conspiracy Narratives: Dissecting The Origins Of Misinformation In Digital Space, Finn Odum
Covid Conspiracy Narratives: Dissecting The Origins Of Misinformation In Digital Space, Finn Odum
Geography Honors Projects
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the role of digital spaces in the dissemination of health information. These online spaces present legitimate dangers for the future of global health, as they perpetuate COVID-19 conspiracies and promote the rejection of health authority. This thesis asks how digital social spaces allow for the spread of COVID-19 misinformation. Through a discourse analysis of conspiracy narrative news coverage, I study the development of three COVID-19 conspiratorial narratives: the Wuhan Lab theory, the Plandemic theory, and the 5G-Coronavirus theory. I aim to understand how these discourses took advantage of the unique character of digital social spaces …
Hmong In The Twin Cities: Diaspora Experiences And Personal Identities, Anisha Rajbhandary
Hmong In The Twin Cities: Diaspora Experiences And Personal Identities, Anisha Rajbhandary
Geography Honors Projects
Asian Americans as a whole have been portrayed as “model minorities” due to their higher degree of socioeconomic success compared to the average population. However, this “model minority” stereotype primarily based upon the voluntary immigration experiences of East and South Asians with greater socio-economic resources, hardly accounts for the immigration experiences of other Asian groups such as Hmong Americans. Utilizing extensive literature review, first person interviews and collected survey data, this paper explores Hmong diaspora and identity in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, analyzing how Hmong Americans reconcile with the stereotypes set for Asian “model minorities” and construct their own …
Canvas Totes And Plastic Bags: The Political Ecology Of Food Assistance Effectiveness At Farmers' Markets In The Twin Cities, Sophia Alhadeff
Canvas Totes And Plastic Bags: The Political Ecology Of Food Assistance Effectiveness At Farmers' Markets In The Twin Cities, Sophia Alhadeff
Geography Honors Projects
In June of 2019, the Trump Administration proposed a policy that could result in three million people losing access to food stamp benefits. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly food stamps, is a governmental food aid program designed to help low-income individuals and families combat food insecurity across the country. According to Minnesota Hunger Solutions, in 2017, 9.5% of Minnesota households were food insecure. In the Twin Cities, SNAP benefits have been accepted at a selection of farmers’ markets since 2003 in order to improve accessibility of fresh, local produce. This paper utilizes a mixed method approach, including qualitative …
Chacra Farming, Peasant Livelihood Portfolios And Identities In The Peruvian Andes, Anna C. Bebbington
Chacra Farming, Peasant Livelihood Portfolios And Identities In The Peruvian Andes, Anna C. Bebbington
Geography Honors Projects
Nearly fifty years after land reform in Peru, and in the face of dramatic climatic and social change, small-scale, high-altitude agriculture and the livelihoods of peasant households have fundamentally changed.Nonetheless, low-input subsistence agriculture, known as chacra agriculture, remains a prominent feature in Andean landscapes and peasant livelihoods. Drawing on research conducted in two agro-pastoral communities in the Ancash region of Peru, this thesis seeks to show how and why households in these communities continue to rely on the chacra as part of their livelihood strategies. While seeking to understand the role of the chacra in peasant livelihood portfolios, I consider …
Los Angeles' Riparian Renaissance: Rethinking The Geographies Of Gentrification Through Green City-Wide Infrastructure Projects, Henry Nieberg
Los Angeles' Riparian Renaissance: Rethinking The Geographies Of Gentrification Through Green City-Wide Infrastructure Projects, Henry Nieberg
Geography Honors Projects
The neoliberal restructuring of global cities has allowed larger scales of investment that has catalyzed and enlarged gentrification processes. The impacts of gentrification today have the potential to transcend individual communities and affect the whole city. Building on the “rent gap” theory, I examine the reasons and ways capital is injected in capital-deficient neighborhoods, and how the inflow of capital affects the spatial scales in which the process of gentrification is occurring today. While there are studies on the impacts local green infrastructure-spending and greening initiatives can have on neighborhood gentrification, we know less about how large, arterial green infrastructure …
Understanding The Construction Of Accessibility And Mobility: Non-Car Transportation In St. Louis, Missouri, Hannah N. Shumway
Understanding The Construction Of Accessibility And Mobility: Non-Car Transportation In St. Louis, Missouri, Hannah N. Shumway
Geography Honors Projects
This research examines disadvantaged populations’ accessibility and mobility in the non-car transportation system in St. Louis. By employing mixed methods, this research investigates accessibility and mobility through three distinct scholarly lenses: physical infrastructure and proximity, individual experiences, and political processes. The thesis synthesizes the analyses from these three approaches in order to provide holistic policy recommendations for creating more equitable transportation systems in St. Louis and beyond. Empirical findings show that neighborhoods with lower median incomes and lower percentages of white population in St. Louis are less accessible for biking and walking, with highly variable public transit accessibility. Bike system …
The Drive To Commercialize: Implications Of Women Rice Farmers’ Differential Resource Access For Market-Oriented Development Intervention In Southwestern Burkina Faso, Millie Varley
Geography Honors Projects
This research questions the theory-of-change underlying market-oriented agricultural development intervention. In particular, this research interrogates divergent commercialization experiences for women, depending on their differential access to resources. The sample covers women rice farmers in five villages in southwestern Burkina Faso, of which three villages are included in a market-oriented development program. I investigate the links between three resources: women’s level of land tenure security, their access to organic fertilizer, and the distribution of time spent on fieldwork. The most significant relationship is an association between women’s land tenure security and the dietary diversity scores of their household, across all wealth …
"From The Neighborhood Up!": Neighborhood Sustainability Certification Frameworks And The New Urban Politics Of Scale, Alex J. Ramiller
"From The Neighborhood Up!": Neighborhood Sustainability Certification Frameworks And The New Urban Politics Of Scale, Alex J. Ramiller
Geography Honors Projects
Urban sustainability goals are closely tied to the current political context, in which the imperative to attract highly mobile global capital frequently steers the objectives of local government. In this paper, I argue for the incorporation of the neighborhood scale into contemporary understandings of “local” or “urban” sustainability policy, emphasizing the potential for multi-scalar certification frameworks to subvert the predominant global-local relationship. By shifting the conceptualization and implementation of sustainability from globally dependent urban regimes to a diverse array of discrete urban communities, neighborhood-scale initiatives are able to draw greater attention to issues of social equity, environmental justice, and spatially …
Why Is There Always A Winner And A Loser?: A Place-Based Study Of Gentrification And Housing Resiliency For Reconnectrondo, Anna Dolde
Geography Honors Projects
No abstract provided.
Correcting For The Inconveniences Of Cultivation: Foraging As A Food Source In Southwestern Burkina Faso, Julia Deryn Morgan
Correcting For The Inconveniences Of Cultivation: Foraging As A Food Source In Southwestern Burkina Faso, Julia Deryn Morgan
Geography Honors Projects
Malnutrition is an important public health issue in Burkina Faso where 30 % of children are underweight for their age and 92% suffer from iron deficiency. Such statistics indicate that there is a significant lack of adequate nutrition in the country. With approximately 80% of the population employed in the agricultural sector, development projects have focused on increasing agricultural production and commercializing output to ameliorate poor nutrition. However, this strategy ignores the importance of local knowledge and food traditions, most notably by neglecting to acknowledge foraging as a significant source of food. To address this concern, I seek to understand …
“A Theoretical Model For Critical Geographies Of Gentrification: A Comparative Analysis Of Globalization In Two Gay Villages”, Spencer Nelson
“A Theoretical Model For Critical Geographies Of Gentrification: A Comparative Analysis Of Globalization In Two Gay Villages”, Spencer Nelson
Geography Honors Projects
Abstract: The role of gay villages in gentrification has long been contemplated yet their relationship to the global circulation of capital is understudied. This thesis sheds light on this phenomenon through an urban political ecology of gentrification and provides a new model of critical geographies of gentrification. The model is illustrated through ethnographic research in the two gay villages of De Waterkant in Cape Town, South Africa, and Loring Park in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The relationship between gentrification and globalization is analyzed through the four lenses that bring flows of financial capital, culture, technology, and ideology into focus and offers a …
Can Global Health Governance Contend With Transnational Corporate Activities? A Case Study On The Chinese Tobacco Industry, Xing Gao
Geography Honors Projects
In the past two decades, China’s state-owned tobacco enterprise (CNTC) has expanded its operation and influence abroad under the “going global” strategy. These globalization activities directly and indirectly impact the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the first international treaty signed under the WHO auspices. In this project, I explore how certain CNTC expansionary strategies undermine FCTC articles, as well as the ways in which FCTC articles have failed to curb the tobacco industry’s transnational growth. Using international political economy as an overarching framework for the analysis of global health governance, I argue that the FCTC fails to halt the …
Conference Of The Birds: Iranian-Americans, Ethnic Business, And Identity, Delia Walker-Jones
Conference Of The Birds: Iranian-Americans, Ethnic Business, And Identity, Delia Walker-Jones
Geography Honors Projects
The United States is home to the largest population of Iranians outside of Iran, an immigrant group that slowly emerged over the latter half of the 20th century, spurred by the 1979 Iranian Revolution and subsequent unrest in the mid-2000s. This case study explores the Iranian and Iranian-American-identifying population of the United States, with a geographic focus on the Twin Cities metro area in Minnesota. It delves into several key questions: are Iranian ethnic businesses distinct from those previously suggested in ethnic entrepreneurship case studies? And how do perceptions of Iranian-American identity play a role in the development of these …
Car Sharing And Local Sustainability: Exposing The Implications Of Assumption-Based Sustainability Initiatives In Minneapolis, Paige Moody
Geography Honors Projects
As the sharing economy proliferates, so does the assumption that all sharing is inherently sustainable. Discourse analysis of car sharing in Minneapolis reveals that this assumption has driven the development of partnerships with two car share programs, one nonprofit and the other for-profit, in the city. Empirical analysis, however, exposes that the two programs, while consistently equated in city policy, have significantly different impacts on local sustainability, especially in terms of public transit usage and social equity. This study highlights powerful implications for the dangers of assumption-based public-private partnerships created within local sustainability initiatives.
Exploring The Role Of Horticulture In Alleviating Food Insecurity Among Women In Botswana, Rachel Fehr
Exploring The Role Of Horticulture In Alleviating Food Insecurity Among Women In Botswana, Rachel Fehr
Geography Honors Projects
By most measures, Botswana is an African development success story. However, there are still segments of the population that suffer from the interlinked phenomena of persistent poverty and food insecurity. The Government of Botswana and its partners have increasingly sought to address household food insecurity through gardening initiatives of various sizes and commercial orientation, but the success of these efforts has not yet been evaluated. I use an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating both econometric analysis and qualitative data viewed through the theoretical lens of political ecology, to determine how effective these women’s gardening initiatives are in addressing household food insecurity. I …
Farmer Discontent In Periurban Bangalore: The Utopia Of Agricultural Modernization, Neoliberal Developmentalism And The 21st Century Global City, Zhe Yu Lee
Geography Honors Projects
Today’s agricultural production in periurban Bangalore is structured by deteriorating ecological conditions and lack of enabling economic environment. Many farmers live in precarity even as market logic has become hegemonic given the dominance of input and capital-intensive cash crop production, a situation exacerbated by the threat of government-driven land acquisition. In my honors thesis, I argue that epistemological assumptions regarding agricultural modernization and neoliberal developmentalism that undergird this mode of production have come to largely structure the operation of institutional frameworks and individual subjectivities. However, these “external” influences are never fully totalizable and by invoking notions of assemblage and hybridity, …
National Park Service Relevancy In The 21st Century: An Exploration Of Racial Inclusion And The Urban Push, Claire E. Finn
National Park Service Relevancy In The 21st Century: An Exploration Of Racial Inclusion And The Urban Push, Claire E. Finn
Geography Honors Projects
As the National Park Service (NPS) approaches its centennial in 2016, it grapples with relevancy as the U.S. racial demographic shifts from a majority white population to a majority people of color population. In this paper I explore the following questions: What is the NPS doing to create racially inclusive places? How do NPS goals of inclusion connect to its recent emphasis on urban parks and populations? Through an analysis of official park documents, expert interviews, and a comparative case study between two Minnesota NPS units (Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (MNRRA) and Voyageurs National Park), I assess the …
Lawn Dissidents: Performing Whiteness Through Sustainability In Urban Residential Yards, Amy Lebowitz
Lawn Dissidents: Performing Whiteness Through Sustainability In Urban Residential Yards, Amy Lebowitz
Geography Honors Projects
“Lawn dissidents” are people who violate norms of turfgrass yards often found in suburbia. This thesis uses ethnographic methods to examine how these subjects’ sustainability-oriented lawn alternatives create meaning by manifesting values and performing identities. I argue that such lawn alternatives operate as positional goods that inscribe exclusion into landscapes. “Green” yardscapes yield social and environmental benefits to “dissidents” while burying the ways capitalism codes lawn alternatives, enacting a regime of whiteness no better for equity and inclusion than suburban lawns. Nonetheless, I turn hopefully to sharing economies as tools to expand sustainability initiatives beyond elite, eco-conscious whiteness.
Retelling Ebola's "Outbreak Narrative" Through Media Coverage Of The 2014 West African Epidemic, Anoushka Millear
Retelling Ebola's "Outbreak Narrative" Through Media Coverage Of The 2014 West African Epidemic, Anoushka Millear
Geography Honors Projects
The 2014 Ebola Virus Disease epidemic, unprecedented in magnitude, has been the focus of worldwide media attention. How does media coverage of the epidemic seize on anxieties of an interconnected world to reinforce longstanding perceptions of Africa as dangerous and chaotic? I compare this media coverage to the model Ebola "outbreak narrative," using critical discourse analysis to contextualize representations of Africa within an increasingly interconnected world. I argue that media coverage reproduces a constructed Western understanding of Africa that will persist long after the epidemic is brought under control.
Examining The Effects Of Ecotourism In The Lashi Lake Wetlands, China, Caitlin K. Toner
Examining The Effects Of Ecotourism In The Lashi Lake Wetlands, China, Caitlin K. Toner
Geography Honors Projects
The rapid development of ecotourism in Asia encourages new strategies to simultaneously attract tourists and preserve natural environments in formerly isolated and underdeveloped regions. Since the introduction of China’s policy of an open economy in 1978, China has recognized the opportunity to promote tourism in order to foster economic development. Compared to China’s coastal cities, the inland provinces contain few industrial cities and transportation infrastructure. For economic development, inland provinces have taken advantage of their natural areas and ethnic minorities as a commodity to attract foreign and domestic tourists in their region. While the literature addressing ecotourism often focuses on …
A Dream Foreclosed: The Uneven Geography Of The Foreclosure Crisis In The Twin Cities, Zack Avre
A Dream Foreclosed: The Uneven Geography Of The Foreclosure Crisis In The Twin Cities, Zack Avre
Geography Honors Projects
Grounded in research on urban housing submarkets, this project assesses the spatial dynamics of the Twin Cities housing market leading up to the subprime mortgage crisis and analyzes the neighborhood impact of the resulting rise in foreclosures, particularly on historically marginalized communities. Constructing housing price histories from central core to outermost suburbs for five submarkets in the Twin Cities, this research reveals the uneven geography of housing bubbles and foreclosures across the metro region. Communities with high concentrations of people of color and low-income residents witnessed the greatest levels of housing value appreciation leading up to the housing crash. However, …
Rethinking Heterolocalism: The Case Of Place-Making Among Albanian-Americans, Merita Bushi
Rethinking Heterolocalism: The Case Of Place-Making Among Albanian-Americans, Merita Bushi
Geography Honors Projects
The theory of heterolocalism explores how immigrants connect to their new setting without clustering among co-ethnics. This research explores the role that Albanian-American organizations in Chicago and New York have in immigrant place-making and building a sense of community through semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The focus on institutions shifts the discourse from individual behaviors to networks. The Albanian case study is used to argue that segmented heterolocalism is more nuanced and thus describes the sociospatial behavior of immigrants in a way that resonates more closely with immigrants and incorporates their sense of community in a place.
'I Am Here To Build With You": Placemaking And Segmented Assimilation Of Lebanese And Lebanese-Americans In The Twin Cities, Anna Nassiff
'I Am Here To Build With You": Placemaking And Segmented Assimilation Of Lebanese And Lebanese-Americans In The Twin Cities, Anna Nassiff
Geography Honors Projects
The Lebanese and Lebanese-American community in the United States is known for both its entrepreneurship and its unusually long-lasting cultural memory. Though relatively small communities, the Lebanese and Lebanese-Americans have had a disproportionately large impact on the landscape of the Twin Cities. This paper examines how Christian Lebanese communities in Northeast Minneapolis and the West Side of Saint Paul have used placemaking as a means to retain their cultural heritage, form an original Lebanese-American identity, and alternatively resist and embrace assimilation. It also considers the fluidity of Lebanese-American identity, and how the gray areas of rigid American societal politics have …
The Social Implications Of Bicycle Infrastructure: What It Means To Bike In America's Best Cycling Cities, Erin Daly
Geography Honors Projects
The abundance of bicycle infrastructure appearing alongside controversial urban revitalization efforts in recent years has left many with distinct perceptions about people who ride bicycles and their role in society. The lifestyle associated with the most visible cyclist cohorts has furthered divisive perceptions and often times created resentment, as what was once a humble tool for mobility has become a symbol of an inaccessible cyclist “culture” often associated with gentrification. This paper aims to acknowledge existing research on how the bicycle has attained so many divisive connotations, while looking at methods to improve this reputation and increase accessibility to utilitarian …