Papers by Marygold Walsh-Dilley
Journal of College Student Retention, 2021
In recent years, researchers have increasingly focused on the experience of food insecurity among... more In recent years, researchers have increasingly focused on the experience of food insecurity among students at higher education institutions. Most of the literature has focused on undergraduates in the eastern and midwestern regions of the United States. This cross-sectional study of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students at a Minority Institution in the southwestern United States is the first of its kind to explore food insecurity among diverse students that also includes data on gender identity and sexual orientation. When holding other factors constant, foodinsecure students were far more likely to fail or withdraw from a course or to drop out entirely. We explore the role that higher education can play in ensuring students' basic needs and implications for educational equity.
Qualitative Sociology, 2019
Latin America remains, much more than any other region in the world, dominated by a single religi... more Latin America remains, much more than any other region in the world, dominated by a single religion: Catholicism. But in the second half of the twentieth century, a so-called BProtestant wave^spread across the region increasing religious diversity. This wave was spurred on by Pentecostal and other evangelical Protestant churches, denominations that challenge the religious syncretism, state-church relationships, and many of the institutions and relationships that structure social and cultural life in Latin America. These changes can bring tensions, conflicts, or abuses that can have a socially disintegrating effect. This paper uses Breligious fragmentation^as a lens to examine this process in rural highland Bolivia. Drawing upon qualitative fieldwork in two communities, this paper first examines the motivations for and contestations surrounding increasing Protestant affiliation and second asks how religious fragmentation interacts with existing social networks and relationships. Paying special attention to reciprocity networks, which are culturally and economically significant in these indigenous communities, this paper argues that non-religious social relationships and activities can act as intervening variables that overcome the social fragmentations of religious change.
Journal of Latin American Geography, 2020
Despite dramatic changes in rural Latin America over the past century that often excluded rural s... more Despite dramatic changes in rural Latin America over the past century that often excluded rural smallholders, peasants, and indigenous peoples, these same populations continue to assert agency and initiate solutions to meet their own needs and goals. This special issue focuses on transformations in rural Latin America, examining how marginalized and rural populations both already are and can increasingly become key actors in generating emancipatory transformations within the context of a changing climate. Acknowledging that climate change is just part of a "tsunami of change" that rural people are facing, these papers explore how climate and other challenges are negotiated on the ground. In this introduction, we focus on transformation as a concept, suggesting that it provides an important conceptual tool with which to integrate emancipatory politics into these multiple processes of change. This introduction draws out some considerations for emancipatory transformation. We suggest that climate change is, in some ways, a red herring, drawing attention away from the ways in which vulnerabilities are produced in particular spatio-temporal contexts. In addition, we suggest that transformations should be considered as hybrid, multiple, and intersectional; a static or monolithic vision of transformation belies the messy realities that rural people face in their everyday lives. Resumen Los cambios dramáticos en las zonas rurales de América Latina durante el siglo pasado han excluido a los agricultores rurales, los campesinos y los pueblos indígenas, estas mismas perso
Global Environmental Change, 2020
Climate change is already affecting rural communities along the high Andean plateau, but it is ju... more Climate change is already affecting rural communities along the high Andean plateau, but it is just one of many stresses that Andean people experience on a regular basis. This paper examines the experiences of quinoa farmers in Southwestern Bolivia as they faced the overlapping crises of protracted drought and market disruption in 2017. Drawing on political ecologies of resilience, this paper argues that the ability of rural people to cope with this double exposure was already compromised by ecological and social vulnerabilities produced through the development trajectories of the previous two decades. These development strategies generated three overlapping processes: 1) neoliberal entanglements involving specialization in quinoa production, marketization, and individualization of livelihoods in ways that undermined collective action; 2) new relationships of debt that tied households to monetized response paths and undermined flexibility; and 3) the degradation of soils through extensification, overproduction, and industrialization of quinoa production. This paper argues that while climate and market disruptions are not to be dismissed, we must historicize the double exposure to also ask how resilience and vulnerability to such challenges are generated in the first place.
Policy in Focus , 2019
While political dynamics differ greatly from one place
to another, rural areas continue to have l... more While political dynamics differ greatly from one place
to another, rural areas continue to have legitimate
grievances. Poverty in rural areas is both more prevalent
and more acute than in urban areas—about 80 per cent
of the world’s extremely poor people live in rural areas.
This will certainly need to change, especially if
governments and development organisations are
serious about achieving the Sustainable Development
Goals. Rural populations are on the front lines of climate
change mitigation and adaptation and will need to be
a productive force to ensure the food security needs
of countries and communities around the world.
Political will and leadership are needed to make rural
development and poverty reduction a priority. Rural
poverty in the 21st century presents new challenges
and opportunities for governments and organisations
that share the goal of pro-poor development.
The classic dichotomies between rural and urban
environments are becoming less relevant as linkages
between the two are becoming more evident. Rural
populations are also increasingly diversifying their
livelihoods: while the agricultural sector remains the
most important, other sectors are crucial to generate
income for poor people in rural areas.
The articles in this issue offer insights into what has been
done to reduce rural poverty; they present some of the
progress that has been made and offer suggestions for
different ways in which further progress can be achieved.
Our objective is to increase the visibility of rural areas and
the centrality of its residents in meeting cross-cutting
existential challenges in the 21st century. We hope that
it helps contribute to the debate by communicating the
urgency and importance of reducing rural poverty to
achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and revitalise
rural areas around the world.
Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 2017
Andean Studies cohered, in large part, around the shared notion of reciprocity as a central eleme... more Andean Studies cohered, in large part, around the shared notion of reciprocity as a central element of indigenous Andean culture, and reciprocity (ayni) continues both as an active practice among Andean communities and an idealized form of human interaction that is called upon in political and other movements. However, the uses of ayni in contemporary political discourses have been critiqued as essentializing and antiquated. This article proposes a re-theorization of reciprocity as a moral–symbolic economic practice that is socially reproduced through the material practices of everyday life. Re-imagining reciprocity in this way frames cooperative practices within the Andes as dynamic and shifting forms of interaction that serve ethical, symbolic, and economic purposes, and thereby avoids treating Andean reciprocity as a traditional artifact. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork in three highland Bolivian communities, this work finds that reciprocal interaction forms an important site in which Andean communities are reproduced.
Even as resilience thinking becomes evermore popular as part of strategic programming among devel... more Even as resilience thinking becomes evermore popular as part of strategic programming among development and humanitarian organizations, uncertainty about how to define, operationalize, measure, and evaluate resilience for development goals prevails. As a result, many organizations and institutions have undertaken individual, collective, and simultaneous efforts toward clarification and definition. This has opened up a unique opportunity for a rethinking of development practices. The emergent consensus about what resilience means within development practice will have important consequences both for development practitioners and the communities in which they work. Incorporating resilience thinking into development practice has the potential to radically transform this arena in favor of social and environmental justice, but it could also flounder as a way to dress old ideas in new clothes or, at worst, to further exploit, disempower, and marginalize the world's most vulnerable populations. We seek to make an intervention into the definitional debates surrounding resilience that supports the former and helps prevent the latter. We argue that resilience thinking as it has been developed in social-ecological systems and allied literatures has a lot in common with the concept of food sovereignty and that paying attention to some of the lessons and claims of food sovereignty movements could contribute toward building a consensus around resilience that supports social and environmental justice. In particular, the food sovereignty movement relies on a strategy that elevates rights. We suggest that a rights-based approach to resilience-oriented development practice could contribute to its application in just and equitable ways.
This article examines the tensions between the individual and the collective within resilience th... more This article examines the tensions between the individual and the collective within resilience thinking. San Juan de Rosario, a quinoa producing village in southwestern Bolivia, provides an interesting case to examine these dynamics. As an indigenous community, land and other resources are managed collectively. Yet, as individuals expand production of quinoa for international markets, traditional collective management institutions have come under stress. Rising inequality, private accumulation, a clandestine land market and increasing environmental degradation are leading to conflicts within the community. This article documents two overlapping tensions between the individual and the collective in this context: first, the emergent discursive tensions as people talk about resilience, what threatens it and what resources are needed to build it; and second, the actual conflicts generated by individual uses of common resources and the efforts to mobilise collective governance institutions in response.
This introduction addresses the rise of 'resilience thinking' in development practice and argues ... more This introduction addresses the rise of 'resilience thinking' in development practice and argues that though scholars and practitioners have sought to define and measure the term resilience the concept is neither fixed nor self-evident. We argue that this lack of ontological coherence unexpectedly makes resilience more productive as an object of inquiry than it would be if it were reduced to a standardised analytical framework or technical object. In the article, we draw on our experiences with a multi-case participatory, community-based research project oriented at uncovering subjective understandings of resilience. These different cases are featured in the articles in this special issue; in the introduction we bring them together to argue that paying attention to the grounded and embedded processes of meaning-making around resilience reveals not only the ambiguity and place-specificity of the concept but also exposes the contradictions inherent in many resilience-oriented interventions.
A rise in large-scale land acquisitions has been documented in the popular media and scholarly li... more A rise in large-scale land acquisitions has been documented in the popular media and scholarly literature, but with little attention to elite actors and their motivations. In this introduction to the special issue, we expand upon commonly held understandings of the drivers of global land acquisitions to explore the complex, dynamic and sometimes contradictory motivations of elites
directly and indirectly involved in land deals. Focusing on the relationships between state actors, private investors, transnational corporations and scientific experts, we outline some principal ways in which elites with diverse interests shape land negotiations. We then introduce the articles in this issue and their contributions to the literature on land deals.
The concept of food sovereignty has been enshrined in the constitutions of a number of countries ... more The concept of food sovereignty has been enshrined in the constitutions of a number of countries around the world without any clear consensus around what state-sponsored ‘food sovereignty’ might entail. At the forefront of this movement are the countries of the so-called ‘pink tide’ of Latin America – chiefly Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. This paper examines how state commitments to food sovereignty have been put into practice in these three countries, asking if and how efforts by the state contribute to significant transformation or if they simply serve the political purposes of elites. Understanding the state as a complex arena of class struggle, we suggest that state efforts around food sovereignty open up new political spaces in an ongoing struggle around control over food systems at different scales. Embedded in food sovereignty is a contradictory notion of sovereignty, requiring simultaneously a strong developmentalist state and the redistribution of power to facilitate direct control over food systems in ways that may threaten the state. State-society relations, particularly across scales, are therefore a central problematic of food sovereignty projects.
Journal of Peasant Studies, Sep 2013
Scholars often highlight the capacity for cooperation and reciprocity as one of the most outstand... more Scholars often highlight the capacity for cooperation and reciprocity as one of the most outstanding features of Andean peasants, but also raise concerns that these traditional strategies necessarily wither and fade as Andean people and places are increasingly incorporated into capitalist markets and processes. This study examines how nonmarket cooperative and reciprocal economic practices are affected as rural Bolivians expand production to meet a growing international demand for the Andean pseudograin quinoa. Based on the grounded experiences of rural Bolivians who are negotiating the modernisation and martketisation of agricultural production for the first time, I find that increasing incorporation into global markets need not undermine the moral economy of rural people, and may in fact strengthen their commitment to reciprocal and cooperative strategies. In contrast to claims that the spread of modern markets and technologies will weaken and ultimately replace cooperative strategies, I argue that reciprocity practices are important components in the construction of a new, hybrid economic space. Within this space, where economic strategies are based on moral sentiments as well as market logic, reciprocity provides a socially and ecologically appropriate ‘toolkit’ with which rural people negotiate their uneven incorporation into global capitalistic processes.
Agriculture and Human Values, 2009
In March, 2004, the rural northern California county of Mendocino voted to ban the propagation of... more In March, 2004, the rural northern California county of Mendocino voted to ban the propagation of all genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This county was the first, and only, U.S. region to adopt such a ban despite widespread activism against biotechnology. Using a civic agriculture perspective, this article explores how local actors in this small county were able to take on the agri-biotechnology industry. I argue that by localizing the issue, the citizens of Mendocino County were able to ignite a highly effective, decentralized and grassroots social movement against which powerful, and well-funded, pro-biotechnology entities were unable to compete. The social problem of biotechnology was embedded in issues of mass concern to Mendocino County residents, such as democracy, equity, distribution of power, and corporate control over local life. The campaign was an arena for “local problem-solving activities organized around food and agriculture” (Lyson 2004, p. 103). However, though localizing this issue was key for generating a successful ban against the propagation of GMOs at the county level, the local orientation of the No to GMOs movement created a barrier for scaling-up and transferring this success to the wider anti-biotechnology movement.
Book Reviews by Marygold Walsh-Dilley
Journal of Anthropological Research, 2021
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Papers by Marygold Walsh-Dilley
to another, rural areas continue to have legitimate
grievances. Poverty in rural areas is both more prevalent
and more acute than in urban areas—about 80 per cent
of the world’s extremely poor people live in rural areas.
This will certainly need to change, especially if
governments and development organisations are
serious about achieving the Sustainable Development
Goals. Rural populations are on the front lines of climate
change mitigation and adaptation and will need to be
a productive force to ensure the food security needs
of countries and communities around the world.
Political will and leadership are needed to make rural
development and poverty reduction a priority. Rural
poverty in the 21st century presents new challenges
and opportunities for governments and organisations
that share the goal of pro-poor development.
The classic dichotomies between rural and urban
environments are becoming less relevant as linkages
between the two are becoming more evident. Rural
populations are also increasingly diversifying their
livelihoods: while the agricultural sector remains the
most important, other sectors are crucial to generate
income for poor people in rural areas.
The articles in this issue offer insights into what has been
done to reduce rural poverty; they present some of the
progress that has been made and offer suggestions for
different ways in which further progress can be achieved.
Our objective is to increase the visibility of rural areas and
the centrality of its residents in meeting cross-cutting
existential challenges in the 21st century. We hope that
it helps contribute to the debate by communicating the
urgency and importance of reducing rural poverty to
achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and revitalise
rural areas around the world.
directly and indirectly involved in land deals. Focusing on the relationships between state actors, private investors, transnational corporations and scientific experts, we outline some principal ways in which elites with diverse interests shape land negotiations. We then introduce the articles in this issue and their contributions to the literature on land deals.
Book Reviews by Marygold Walsh-Dilley
to another, rural areas continue to have legitimate
grievances. Poverty in rural areas is both more prevalent
and more acute than in urban areas—about 80 per cent
of the world’s extremely poor people live in rural areas.
This will certainly need to change, especially if
governments and development organisations are
serious about achieving the Sustainable Development
Goals. Rural populations are on the front lines of climate
change mitigation and adaptation and will need to be
a productive force to ensure the food security needs
of countries and communities around the world.
Political will and leadership are needed to make rural
development and poverty reduction a priority. Rural
poverty in the 21st century presents new challenges
and opportunities for governments and organisations
that share the goal of pro-poor development.
The classic dichotomies between rural and urban
environments are becoming less relevant as linkages
between the two are becoming more evident. Rural
populations are also increasingly diversifying their
livelihoods: while the agricultural sector remains the
most important, other sectors are crucial to generate
income for poor people in rural areas.
The articles in this issue offer insights into what has been
done to reduce rural poverty; they present some of the
progress that has been made and offer suggestions for
different ways in which further progress can be achieved.
Our objective is to increase the visibility of rural areas and
the centrality of its residents in meeting cross-cutting
existential challenges in the 21st century. We hope that
it helps contribute to the debate by communicating the
urgency and importance of reducing rural poverty to
achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and revitalise
rural areas around the world.
directly and indirectly involved in land deals. Focusing on the relationships between state actors, private investors, transnational corporations and scientific experts, we outline some principal ways in which elites with diverse interests shape land negotiations. We then introduce the articles in this issue and their contributions to the literature on land deals.