Critical engagement, activist/academic subjectivities and organic agri-food research in Uganda

Abstract

This paper provides a reflexive account of engagement in activist/academic organic agri-food research in Uganda. I argue that critical engagement across the third space – between and across activist and academic subjectivities – enables a re-thinking of the subjectivities of activist/academics and research participants and the place of research in social change and theory building. I demonstrate some of the multiple ways of enacting activism within the academy by reflecting on my critical engagement with the Katuulo Organic Pineapple Cooperative in Uganda, whose members grow certified organic pineapples for sale on the international market. While there is a growing interest in critical activist research, its agenda is also constrained by the corporatist turn in universities. As such, the subjectivities, methods and theory building of activist/academics in agri-food (and other) research represents part of the resistance to normalised ways of doing and being in contemporary neo-liberal universities.

Keywords:

• activism
• critical engagement
• organic agriculture
• participation
• Uganda

Notes

¹ I designed and taught Food Politics: Science, Nature and Society in the School of Biomolecular and Physical Sciences at Griffith University between 2004 and 2010, until I left Griffith University. Students from Science, Environmental Science, Planning and Arts degree programmes (amongst others) undertook this course.

² The two leading supermarket chains in Australia – Woolworths and Coles – control an estimated 70–75% of total grocery sales; a level of concentration not seen in other parts of the world (Burch and Lawrence 2007).

³ There have also been rumblings for more actively engaged scholarship from within sociology. Burawoy (2004), for example, has repeatedly championed a new “public” sociology in response to what he conceives as the “growing gap between the sociological ethos and the world we study” (Fuller and Askins 2007, p. 583).

⁴ A number of disciplines articulate a similar praxis. One of Australia's leading social ecologists, for example, Professor Stuart Hill (2005), has been outspoken in his critique of research that “monitors our extinction”; referring to the growing body of literature that documents social and environmental problems. In its place, he calls for a critically engaged research agenda that empowers communities to become active participants in defining and addressing social and environmental problems.

⁵ This research has been supported via an Australian Research Council Discovery grant (2004–2006) “Globalising Organics, Sustaining Rural Livelihoods”, along with Geoff Lawrence, David Burch and Roy Rickson, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (2007) Socio-economic impacts of organic agriculture in Africa, along with David Burch, as well as a travel grant from the Centre for Governance and Public Policy at Griffith University.

⁶ In response to the concerns and issues – including power relations associated with cross-cultural research – in Australia, indigenous Research is now guided by “Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Studies” (AIATSIS n.d.).

⁷ There are very few individually certified organic farms in Uganda. Given the small size of farms (the majority are less than 5 hectares), the cost of individual certification would otherwise prohibit smallholders from entering the certified organic agriculture sector (see Lyons et al., for more details of the organic group certification process).

⁸ While beyond the scope of this paper, it is important to note that the expansion of African organic exporting has raised a number of anxieties and conflict amongst environmental and social justice advocates. For example, some social justice activists have argued that export-led agriculture will reduce the land and labour available to ensure local-level food security, as well as tying smallholders' livelihoods to the whims of northern consumer preferences, corporate actors and organic certification requirements (see e.g. Freidberg 2004, Smith and Lyons 2011). Some organic advocates have also opposed African organic exporting on the basis of concerns that airfreight of organic food (and the associated carbon emissions) is antithetical with core environmental principles of the organic movement. These debates about “food miles” and organics coalesced in 2007; when the UK Soil Association (the world's first organic certification organisation) proposed that their organic standard would prohibit the use of airfreight for transporting organic produce. While they subsequently dropped this proposal (following significant public debate), thereby appearing to respond to broad calls for social and economic justice for African smallholder farmers via participation in international organic markets, many unresolved questions and anxieties remain.

⁹ Previously, communal savings have been used to purchase additional land (including the land on which the health clinic has been built) and to assist cooperative members with microcredit loans when needed.

¹⁰ In 2006, and along with collaborator Sam Neal, I was involved in designing and leading a week long tour of organic farms, organic farm training programmes, as well as meeting government and civil society representatives and school groups, and national park visits in Uganda. Members of the KOPC accepted our invitation to be part of the tour, and during our visit a conversation started between tour delegates and cooperative members regarding aspirations for a health and medical clinic. The outcome of this “organic”, unplanned and unstructured discussion was a commitment on behalf of the tour delegates to collaborate with KOPC in fundraising to support the establishment of the health and medical clinic. In that moment, we each made a commitment to a partnership and, in so doing, opened up a space for critical engagement; a space I have continued to explore for many years.

¹¹ My sincere thanks to our friends from HUG – Help Us Grow – a community organisation engaged in a number of community development projects in Uganda. Staff and volunteers at HUG produced calendars with photos from the KOPC and their related projects which we were then able to sell as part of our fundraising efforts with the KOPC.

¹² “Mukwano” literally means friend in Lugandan, one of the local languages spoken in Katuulo. We selected this name to reflect the friendship between Katuulo farmers and those of us in Australia who were collaborating to support the establishment of the health and medical clinic. By obtaining affiliation, we sought to widen interest and to support the research, connect with other social and environmental justice projects and issues, and importantly for some of our donors, ensure tax deductibility status.

¹³ After raising funds in Australia, we often deposited money directly into the KOPC bank account, or delivered personally to the treasurer of the KOPC to manage. On some occasions, we also travelled with cooperative members and purchased items (including building materials) together. In so doing, we sought to establish the conditions whereby the KOPC were able to manage these funds as their own. While we requested transparency on expenditures – particularly feedback to our donors – we sought to ensure the cooperative maintained their financial independence.

¹⁴ Cooperative members were enthusiastic about the solar panels for a number of reasons. In addition to providing power for the clinic (including lighting, refrigeration for medicine and to run the microscope), they also discussed enthusiastically the opportunity to access power locally – therefore being able to more conveniently charge their mobile phones; which they would otherwise have to walk to the local trading centre, some 2 km away.

¹⁵ Indeed, on my most recent visit to Katuulo (June 2012), it became apparent that some community members were expecting far more from me than I realized in terms of establishing the health clinic, including being solely responsible for fundraising. This misunderstanding, which has now been clarified, may have in part been fuelled by this kind of executive and “on-the-run” decision-making on my part.

¹⁶ As part of my visit in June 2012, I sadly learnt that the pit latrines have collapsed. KOPC members, in collaboration with HUG staff, are currently investigating other models for sanitation.

¹⁷ I am not suggesting here that the clinic would not have come into being without our collaborative relationship. However, it has taken a particular form as a result of the collaborative relationship between KOPC and myself. It is important to note, however, that drought conditions – and subsequent crop failure – has meant that a significant portion of KOPC member savings for the clinic were spent on the purchase of food. Without our collaborative fundraising, it is likely to expect that this may have delayed construction of the clinic.

¹⁸ Even for those academics that do “fit” into this increasingly corporatized and competitive terrain, many (and I am not immune) internalise productivity measures. The outcome of this may lead to competition with other staff, increased individualism and self-promotion. Fuller and Askins (2007) also document the links between these working conditions and stress-related illness and depression.