| Chapter 1: | ADM, A Tomato Named Local Lucy, and Small Farms: The Ecology and Reemergence of Farmers’ Markets |
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In a related effort, through their incorporation of political economy into biological anthropology, Goodman and Leatherman (1998) offered a “bioanthropological political economy” perspective. They outlined five interrelated issues:
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1. The importance of…social relations through which individuals gain access to basic Resources and labor. These social relations are key to Resource production and distribution (that is, they are relations of power) and thus are key to forming proximate environments…
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2. The importance of links between the local and the global (macro-micro interconnections). Threats and benefits…are invariably linked to regional and international processes, and how they intersect with local conditions to shape the microenvironment of adaptation.
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3. History and historical contingency are critical to understanding the direction of social change…
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4. Humans are active agents in constructing their environments. Part of this constructing entails resistance and revolution, as well as accommodation and adjustment…
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5. Ideology and knowledge, of subjects and scientists alike, are key to understanding human action…it is increasingly clear how power and Resources are maintained by control of knowledge. (pp. 19–20)
This book is, by necessity, not a detailed theoretical study of the political ecology of farmers’ markets; rather, it is a problem-oriented study using a broadly defined political ecology as an analytical framework. An important outcome of this study is the adaptation of constructs from political ecology to assist farmers’ market organizers and those who work with them to “see” their environment, thus enhancing decision making and strategic planning. A pragmatic approach is vital. Missing are detailed analyses of the dynamics of power hierarchies and impacts of localized agro-ecologies.