Book reviews

Conversations with lillian hellman edited by Jackson R. Bryer‐Jackson and London: University Press of Mississippi, 1986, 298 pp. $19.95 (cloth), $9.95 (paper).

PROVINCE OF REASON: AMERICAN LIVES IN A NEW AGE OF SCIENCE by Sam Bass Warner, Jr. Harvard University Press, 1984. (cloth, $20.00)     

How not to think of land-grabbing: three critiques of large-scale investments in farmland

Large-scale investments in farmland have been criticized, chiefly, because of questions about the capacity of the countries targeted by these land deals to effectively manage these investments in order to ensure that they contribute to rural development and poverty alleviation. This article questions the idea that this is the only or even the main problem raised by such investments. If weak governance were the only problem, then appropriate regulation—and incentives to manage such investments correctly—would indeed be a solution. However the real concern behind the development of large-scale investments in farmland is that giving land away to investors, having better access to capital to ‘develop’, implies huge opportunity costs, as it will result in a type of farming that will have much less powerful poverty-reducing impacts, than if access to land and water were improved for the local farming communities; that it directs agriculture towards crops for export markets, increasing the vulnerability to price shocks of the target countries; and that even where titling schemes seek to protect land users from eviction, it accelerates the development of a market for land rights with potentially destructive effects on the livelihoods, both of the current land users that will face increased commercial pressure on land, and of groups depending on the commons—grazing and fishing grounds, and forests. The article maps these various levels of critiques. It concludes that we need to do more than impose a discipline on land-grabbing: we need a real alternative to this kind of investment in land.     

The Bologna Process: Impact on Interdisciplinarity and Possibilities for Women's Studies

This article discusses the impact of the so‐called Bologna process on possibilities for interdisciplinary higher education and research, in particular in relation to Women's Studies. Based on findings from two European research projects, it argues that the spaces open to interdisciplinarity and Women's Studies in higher education under the Bologna process are strongly marked by national systems and their interpretations of the Bologna requirements. The opportunities in the educational field (whether at undergraduate or post‐graduate level) to innovate and flexibilize, key requisites for Women's Studies as a discipline, are impaired by institutional structures of administration, research, evaluation, accreditation and career development that rely on disciplinarity as their core categories. The Nordic countries seem to have moved more clearly than others, such as Hungary or Spain, towards an implementation of the Bologna agreement in a manner that facilitates both interdisciplinarity and Women's Studies.     

Geographic proximity and university–industry interaction: the case of Mexico

This paper analyses whether geographic proximity favours specific channels of university–industry interaction when firms collaborate with universities and with government research centres. Our study also provides insights regarding the relationship between the associated channel and the role of firms’ absorptive capacities. Our results show that firms with higher levels of absorptive capacities tend to interact more independently of their location. Additionally, interaction with non-local universities generally includes the transfer of codified forms of knowledge, while links with local universities includes more tacit forms of knowledge. Policy implications derived from this analysis focus on fostering interaction at local and non-local levels.