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Abstract
This ethnography documents how the message of sustainability was interpreted and communicated through a sustainable agricultural (SAG) program at an American higher education institution. The ethnography documents the evolution of the program as the program tackled obstacles and accomplished its goals during the initial phases of the program’s development. A cultural communication framework is established in order to analyze the agitative, oppositional, intracommunal, and ritual communication utilized by the program’s members. The ethnography argues that the strategies and tactics employed by the SAG program alongside its curriculum and instruction are similar to the choices made by oppositional social movements. Findings reveal that when chosen and implemented intelligently, these strategies are as useful for a social movement within established academic institutions as they are for groups outside of them. The ethnography also highlights the importance of ritual communication as part of both education and social movement interactions.
Notes
1. A land-grant university is a university in the United States granted benefits from the Morrill acts of 1862 and 1890. The benefits were created by the sale of federally granted lands that were sold by individual states in order to fund the creation of academic institutions. The academic institutions were expected to concentrate on the practical agriculture, science, and engineering disciplines. The focus of the education was on addressing the needs of the states’ populaces, and many land-grant institutions became publicly funded universities in the United States.
2. Williams gave permission to use his real name and the name of the SAG program. All other individuals interviewed remain anonymous. This condition was the choice of the researcher. Subjects were aware of this condition at the outset of the ethnography.
3. The ‘phases’ of the program are not official. I have come to view the history and current status of the program in terms of phases.
4. Agitation, Control, and Establishment are emotionally charged words. In using these terms, the intent is not to cast institutions such as UK or its Agricultural College in a pejorative light. The goal is merely to orient the entities within the framework Bowers, Ochs, and Jensen’s (Citation2009) originally applied.
5. There may be some contention that the sustainability movement is a form of social change. The assumption here is that it is.
6. As evidence of the SAG program representing a small group, Williams expressed concern over maintaining the family and close-friend feel of the program as it grew during a number of interviews (personal communication 2012).
7. Bowers, Ochs, and Jensen (Citation2009) stress the importance of legitimizers. However, they describe the importance of legitimizers as necessary for media coverage. In Williams’ case, establishment legitimizers were not used to increase media coverage, but to approve of the position of the SAG program in the Agricultural College, for accreditation and certification. Without academic and administrative legitimizers, the success of the project may have been in jeopardy. During interviews and conversations, Williams and other faculty members made sure to emphasize this detail. For example, banishment, a form of suppression, could also have been utilized if not for legitimizers receptive to Williams’ initiatives and unwilling to terminate his position.
8. To avoid confusion, Bowers, Ochs, and Jensen (Citation2009) define strategies as ‘general choices available to dissenters and to the establishment’ while tactics are ‘more specific choices.’ Both ‘guide the form that their rhetoric or actions will take’ (21).
9. Williams’ has expressed his hesitancy in even using the words agitation, agitator, resister, control, or establishment as he is uncomfortable with such a relationship or label attached to his work and research as it is not his personal perspective on the events.
10. Kentucky’s major agricultural exports are conventional corn and tobacco (Kentucky Department of Agriculture Citation2012).
11. There are exceptions, especially for individuals with previous agricultural and farm experience.
12. Numerous experiences between those unfamiliar with the SAG program and SAG members were confessed to me. The conversations usually consisted of an unfamiliar individual assuming SAG is extreme gardening, or a no mechanization, inefficient, and un-economical approach to agriculture. On the contrary, Williams’ approach embraces mechanization and the use of plastic.
13. The SAG program does not currently offer a livestock portion of their program. This is in part because there are not any current faculty members interested in such research as well as organic certification concerns for animal production near vegetable farming.
14. A number of SAG faculty members received major grants while I was conducting research. The revenue allowed the program to expand and offer more comprehensive and complex opportunities.
15. I use the word arguably because some of the advantages of the university, such as student apprentices, available land, research funds, and other academic resources are not available to the average Kentucky farmer.
16. A provisional student offered a rebuttal: The extensive research and scientific rather than experiential approach to agriculture may be more valuable to some students than an internship. Also, the SAG program is considering local internships and incubator farms to round out the SAG major’s experience and to address some of these issues.