The Dictionary of Human Geography (6 page)

agro-food system
According to the Organisation for Economic Co operation and Development (OECD), ?the set of activities and relationships that interact to determine what, how much, by what methods and for whom food is produced and distributed? (Whatmore, 2002b, pp. 57 8). The most commonly ac knowledged sectors/spheres that comprise the agro food system are agrarian production itself (farming); agricultural science and technology products and services to farming (upstream in dustries); food processing, marketing, distribu tion and retail (downstream industries); and household food purchasing, preparation and consumption. In addition, those state and, in creasingly, private bodies that regulate prices, terms of trade, food quality and environmen tal concerns relative to food production play an integral role in shaping the agro food system. Various analytical frameworks have been employed to specify the ways in which the mul tiple practices and institutions that organize the provision of food are interrelated, and even co produced. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Among different conceptualizations of the agro food system, one major axis of difference is whether the key organizing forces of the food system exist at horizontal scales or ver tical flows. An example of the first is the concept of food regime. Borrowing from REgu lation thEory, Friedman and McMichael (NEW PARAGRAPH) first employed this concept to denote the existence of national patterns of food production and trade that are periodically sta bilized by distinct configurations of private, sub national, national and supra national regulation. An example of the latter is Fine, Heasman and Wright?s (1996) ?system of provision?. In keeping with the commodity chain approach, they take the vertical trajectory of a given commodity as the unit of analysis. In this approach, the agro food system is best understood as a composite of all commodity sys tems, even though many food stuffs travel through horizontal organizations and institu tions and are eaten as part of a (horizontal) diet. (NEW PARAGRAPH) A second major consideration in these differ ing approaches is the extent to which the nat ural conditions of production, the organic properties of food, and/or specific commodity characteristics are seen to shape the agro food system. Goodman, Sorj and Wilkinson (1987) afford a good deal of explanatory power to the biological foundations of food production insofar as they posit that Indus triALization takes place in ways that are dis tinct from other key sectors (see agrarian quEStion). (NEW PARAGRAPH) A third consideration is the ontological sta tus of the food system itself; namely, to what extent the term reifies a set of relationships that are then seen to be more determined and stable than they may be. Drawing on French convention theory, Allaire and Boyes (NEW PARAGRAPH) first highlighted the importance of em bedded social relations in constructing the quality of food commodities. Recently, agro food scholars have borrowed from actor NETwork thEory as well, not only to recog nize that food provision is more contingent, variable, fragmented and, hence, vulnerable to political change than the systemic language (NEW PARAGRAPH) implies, but also to theorize the significance of the non human in non binary ways. What more and Thorne?s (1997) discussion of alter native food networks mostly precipitated the shift from ?systems? to ?NEtworks? as the dom inant analytic in agro food studies. jgu (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Fold and Pritchard (2005); Tansey and Worsley (NEW PARAGRAPH) (1995). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
aid
Targeted and typically conditional flows of resources aimed at alleviating specific so cial and economic problems and/or promoting long term economic development. Aid may take a variety of forms, but the predominant forms, such as world bank loans and Official Development Assistance (ODA) from govern ment agencies, are usually designed to encour age specific policy choices by recipients and are conditional upon the recipient importing specific products or services from firms con nected with the donor agency. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Such forms of ?tied aid? have a long history, but have become especially important since the end of the Second World War. From that point the World Bank, which was formed along with the international monetary fund (imf) in 1945, took on a central role in providing large scale international aid for re construction and long term development (Payer, 1982; Kolko, 1988, pp. 265 77). While the World Bank was originally focused upon the reconstruction of advanced indus trial economies, it came later to have as one of its main tasks the provision of aid to devel oping countries. Since the 1970s, World Bank loans have been offered on the condition that a number of political and economic reforms, often referred to as ?structural ADjUStMENt?, are implemented (Mosley, Harrigan and Toye, 1991; see also neo LibErALiSM). This practice has come under considerable criticism in recent years, on grounds ranging from distri butional and environmental impacts to failure to involve local communities in development decisions. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Many forms of ODA have been criticized, like World Bank projects, for their effects on local livelihoods and recipient country auton omy (Gibson, Andersson, Ostrom and Shiva kumar, 2005). For example, tied aid forces recipient countries to purchase goods and ser vices from the donor country, thus subsidizing donor country exporters and forcing recipients to purchase goods. (NEW PARAGRAPH) For example, in 1990, only one of the world?s 27 Development Assistance Countries (DAC), (NEW PARAGRAPH) Norway, gave more than 1 per cent of its Gross National Income (GNI) in aid (1.17 per cent), with the DAC average being 0.33 per cent of GNI. In 2003, no DAC members donated as much as 1 per cent of GNI, and the overall DAC average declined to a quarter of one per cent. For the USA, the figures were 0.21 per cent in 1990 and 0.15 per cent in 2003 (UNDP, 2005, p. 278). Other forms of emer gency and short term relief aid are provided under the auspices of a wide variety of agencies, including humanitarian and non governmen tal organizations. With an endowment ofnearly $40 billion in 2008, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is set to become a major player among international aid agencies. jgl (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Gibson, Andersson, Ostrom and Shivakumar (2005); Kolko (1988); Mosley, Harrigan and Toye (1991); Payer (1982); United Nations Development Program (UNDP) (2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
AIDS
Geographical perspectives on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, its causes and consequences, have taken three related tacks. The earliest was from the discipline's spatiaL science tradition (e.g. Shannon, Pyle and Bashshur, 1991). This approach treated AIDS as a newcomer in a long line of non human infective agents (bacteria, viruses etc.), such as cholera, influenza, tuberculosis and malaria, that medical geographers could model (see medicaL geograpHy). Work in this tack mapped the spatial distribution, and sought to model the diffusion of the disease (especially its various strains) predictively. (NEW PARAGRAPH) This approach was quickly outpaced by pol itical and cultural geographers, who exposed the HomopHobia and Heterosexism often at work in earlier spatial science approaches, as well as reflecting a postmodern trend that challenged the primacy of science to guide geographers' approach to studying the worLd. (For instance, this work often exposed spatial science's embarrassingly awkward en counters with culture.) Rather than reductively conceptualizing the virus as a non human/bio logical entity (as spatial science had), this scholarship emphasized the virus and its syn drome as a thoroughly social, rather than bio logical, phenomenon. It therefore explored the multiple meanings at stake in transmission, prevention and care. It showed how various structures such as patriarcHy, biomedical he gemony and racism, in places disempower people living with HIV. It especially reframed AIDS as a poLiticaL geograpHy, raising ques tions of equity and sociaL justice in particular places. In this way, HIV positive people were reconceptualized not as passive nodes of diffu sion (with all the attendant blame), but as active agents struggling to prevent further in fection, and to respond caringly and humanely to the ?glocal? dimensions (see gLocaLizatioN/ gLocaLity) of the pandemic. In this way, geographers' complex response to AIDS was a synecdoche for the epistemological and methodological debates within/between med icaL geograpHy and geographies of HeaLtH and HeaLtH care, but also the growing interest in feminism and the rise of queer geography (see QuEer tHeory). It thereby ac celerated and intensified links between that sub discipline and a wide array of others. This work also broached the nature society duality, exemplifying for some the incorpor ation of the body and disease into the explod ing field of poLiticaL ecoLogy. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Presently, work in geography continues on the sociaL construction of the syndrome and the various social identities of sexuaLity, race, cLass and gender (e.g. Raimondo, 2005). In more contemporary work on HIV and AIDS, there has also been a return to a more global (or glocal) perspective (Craddock, 2000b). There has also been a much needed return to a regional focus on AIDS in africa (e.g. Oppong, 1998; Kesby, 1999), but also the global South more generally, bringing the pandemic into deveLopment geography, as well as gLobaLization and geographies of neo LiberaLism (e.g. questions on access to expensive, life saving drugs in the context of free trade and market hegemony; or questions of safer sex education in the context of an ascendant social conservatism and homopho bia in social and international aid policy). In this way, more recent works show a much greater appreciation of the multiplicity of social geographies of AIDS than the previous two strands of research. mb (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Craddock, Oppong, Ghosh and Kalipeni (2003); Shannon, Pyle and Bashshur (1991). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
algorithm
A problem solving procedure with set rules. Many algorithms can be represented as decision making trees and translated into computer code, allowing complex tasks to be tackled efficiently. rj (NEW PARAGRAPH)
alienation
A term derived from the Latin word alienus, meaning ?of or belonging to an other'. Of Judeo Christian origin, the concept became a secularized keyword in nineteenth and twentieth century phiLosophy and sociaL theory via G.W.F. Hegel?s writings, particu larly his Phenomenology of the spirit (1808) and Philosophy of right (1821), and their critical adaptation by Karl Marx in his early writings (1843 5). In Phenomenology, Hegel contended that the object world (nature, religion, art etc.), which loomed independent of man?s consciousness, epitomized alienation. Accordingly, absolute knowledge or freedom consisted in overcoming alienation by under standing the external world as emanation of Spirit a facet of the human subject?s own self consciousness or essence. Rejecting the polit ically conservative implications of Hegel?s philosophy, which anointed the state and its order of private property as the culmination of substantive freedom (i.e. as the essence and end product of man?s striving for self con sciousness), Karl Marx instead proposed that capitalist production organized around state protected private property rights and that cal culative reason was the source of radical dis harmony among individuals, who ended up estranged from their social existence; between individuals and their creative life activity or labour; and between individuals and means of production (see capitalism; class). The (NEW PARAGRAPH) concept of alienation entered geography via the work of Bertell Ollman (1976) and his interlocutors. vg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Marx (1988 [1844]). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
Alonso model
A model of the zonal struc turing of land use within an urban area. Using accessibility (measured as transport time and cost: cf. friction of distance) as the key variable, it accounts for intra urban vari ations in land values, land use and land use intensity. Its simplest form assumes that all journeys are focused on the city centre. Land users balance transport costs to that point against those for land and property, with the highest prices being bid for the most accessible inner city land which only commercial and industrial enterprises can afford. The result (shown in the figure) is a distance decay re lationship between location rent and distance from the centre, with residential uses (which have the lowest bid rent curves) confined to the outer zone. Alonso?s now largely obsolete model of a unicentric city can be modified to accommodate a multi centred organization of urban land use (see centrifugal and centri petal forces; decentralization; edge city; (NEW PARAGRAPH) sprawl) and also gENtrification of inner city, formerly non residential areas, but is less relevant to spatial structures in which accessi bility to a small number of points (usually by public transport) is a minor influence on many locational choices. rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Alonso (1964a); Cadwallader (1996). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
alterity
A philosophical term for othEr/ othERNESS. Rather than referring to individual differences, it more often refers to the system atic construction of classes, groups and cat egories. Such groups or classes are seen as ?Other? to a dominant construction of the Self (Taussig, 1993). Occupying the position of outsiders, such groups are often denied the basic rights and dignities afforded to those who are included within such cultural units as community, ciTizENShip or humanity (Isin, (NEW PARAGRAPH) . Alterity does not refer merely to a cast ing out. Instead, the logic of exclusion is such that the Other is immanent to the constitution of the dominant group. as (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Isin (2002). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
alternative economies
Approaches to trade that challenge many of the principles of capitalism. As part of a broader set of critical commentaries on capitalism (see, e.g., Gibson Graham, 1996), work on alternative economies has revealed the importance of initiatives including gift economies, charity banks and Local Exchange Trading Systems (see Leyshon, Lee and Williams, 2003). Alternative economies are often seen as a viable strategy for dealing with forms of social exclusion caused by groups being bypassed or exploited by mainstream spaces of capitalism, such as the retail banking industry (Leyshon, Burton, Knights, Alferoff and Signoretta 2004). jf (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Leyshon, Lee and Williams (2003). (NEW PARAGRAPH)