Call for papers for the CASCA conference in May 2008
Changes in the structure of property relations over the last twenty
years — de-collectivisation in former socialist countries, the
globalisation of intellectual property rights over seeds, the
consolidation of large agro-chemical companies — have profoundly
affected the most basic of all human activities, the production of
food. Control over food and food production has always been in human
history a locus of power, a means of repression and a motive for
revolution and rebellion. At the beginning of the 21st century, the
controversies about technologies of agricultural production and about
forms of property over land and seeds raise issues about life-style,
economic and environmental justice and democratic transparency.
The workshop calls for contributions from researchers who work on
agricultural producers in different parts of the world and especially
in post-socialist and socialist countries, who explore how
agricultural practice shapes and is shaped by political worldviews and
structures of power and how these are in turn affected by global
agricultural policies.
Birgit Müller, LAIOS-CNRS, Paris, bmuller@msh-paris.fr
