No hay ganancia en la milpa: the agrarian question,food sovereignty,and the on-farm conservation of agrobiodiversity in the Guatemalan highlands

Although they receive little recognition for their contribution, peasant farmers in the global South play a fundamental role in securing the long-term global food supply. Via their self-sufficient agricultural practices, they cultivate the crop genetic diversity that enables food crops to adapt to changing environmental conditions. In this paper I draw upon empirical data from the Guatemalan center of agricultural biodiversity to investigate the concern that market expansion will displace peasant agriculture and undermine a cornerstone of the global food supply. I find that even though peasants' livelihoods involve multiple forms of market provisioning, they also engage in a Polanyian ‘double movement’ to protect their subsistence-oriented agricultural practices from the potentially deleterious effects of markets. I also investigate the so-called ‘agrarian question’ about the effects of market expansion on the viability of peasant agriculture, finding that although new forms of market provisioning are likely exacerbating rural inequality, the income from market activities actually enables rural Guatemalans to reproduce the conditions for peasant agriculture. Ultimately, I observe that the conservation of agricultural biodiversity and, consequently, global food security are contingent upon the ‘food sovereignty’ of peasant farmers.     

Interweaving Aboriginal/Indigenous Rights with Urban Citizenship: A View from the Winnipeg Low-Cost Housing Sector,Canada

State-society relations around low-cost housing in Canada changed from a period of strong federal leadership centred on social rights to a period of state retrenchment. A coalition of housing stakeholders from the public, private, and voluntary sectors self-organized in Winnipeg to create new low-cost housing following the 1993 discontinuation of federal social housing programs. This move toward urban citizenship was not received in the same way by Aboriginal peoples pursuing a distinctive set of rights centred on self-determination alongside common social (housing) goals. While Aboriginal rights are given regard at the federal level, they were not embedded in localized citizenship processes. Expanding the theorization of urban citizenship, the empirical results in this article reveal that discourses of democratic racism and cultural neutrality permeate mainstream views, running counter to Aboriginal citizenship pursuits.     

THE HEAVY ENGINEERING ADJUSTMENT AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM: ORIGINS, PROCESS AND OUTCOMES

Abstract: An industry-specific plan for the heavy engineering industry was introduced by the federal Labor government in 1986. It is an important subject for several reasons. Heavy engineering is a vital industry but receives little publicity. The manner of the plan's introduction is representative of Labor's priorities in its first period of office. The plan's character was exemplary in its forward-looking emphasis on reconstruction. Finally, the adverse bureaucratic environment in which the plan operated provides salutary lessons for cost-efficient and workable industry policy in the future.     

Compensating Plaintiffs and Punishing Defendants: Is Bifurcation Necessary?

Critics of the civil jury have proposed several procedural reforms to address the concern that damage awards are capricious and unpredictable. One such reform is the bifurcation or separation of various phases of a trial that involves multiple claims for damages. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of bifurcating the compensatory and punitive damages phases of a civil tort trial. We manipulated the wealth of the defendant and the reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct (both sets of evidence theoretically related to punitive but not to compensatory damages) across three cases in a jury analog study. We wondered whether jurors would misuse the punitive damages evidence in fixing compensatory damages and whether bifurcation would effectively undo this practice. Our findings indicated that mock jurors did not improperly consider punitive damages evidence in their decisions about compensation. Moreover, bifurcation had the unexpected effect of augmenting punitive damage awards. These findings raise questions about the merits of bifurcation in cases that involve multiple claims for damages.