O'connell Dissertation
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IN THE STRUGGLE: PEDAGOGIES OF POLITICALLY ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP IN THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Daniel Joseph O’Connell August 2011 i © 2011 Daniel Joseph O’Connell ii IN THE STRUGGLE: PEDAGOGIES OF POLITICALLY ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP IN THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA Daniel Joseph O’Connell, Ph. D. Cornell University 2011 A handful of scholars conducted research and advocated for change in the San Joaquin Valley of California during twentieth century. Six social scientists, who I refer to as “politically engaged scholars,” engaged in struggles for social justice, economic equity and democratic governance, both as scholars who produced knowledge and constructed theory and as political actors who aimed to advance particular interests and ends. In the Valley’s adversarial contexts, they varied their roles as scholars by leading strikes, organizing underserved communities, founding community development programs, creating non-profit institutions, in addition to working as traditional social scientists. Their intellectual work illustrated the political dimensions of social science and the educational praxis of engaged scholarship as the scholars deviated from the conventional role of detached observers into active participants in highly charged debates. The concept of pedagogy frames my research because it allows an alternative understanding of these scholars who entered research settings as change agents and openly admitted values into their scholarship. Since social scientists produce knowledge for cultural and professional consumption, and sometimes explicitly for public purposes, their work occupies an educational nexus between the academy and the broader society where research findings and academic knowledge are produced, iii disseminated and represented in particular ways. In order to understand their pedagogical practice, I use a narrative structure comprised of the scholar’s first person stories and my interpretation of a variety of texts including their academic papers. The resulting narrative informs pedagogies of political engagement through scholarship. The scholars’ experiences, values and findings blend together as the harassment they experienced and politicization of their scientific findings become sub- plots in larger struggles for economic justice and the defense of democracy in the San Joaquin Valley. Their stories and this narrative find that democracy is fundamentally linked to a just, sustaining and egalitarian economic system. iv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Born in Los Angeles and raised in southern California, Daniel O’Connell attended the University of California, San Diego, where he received a B.A. in History. He then worked in alternative education with street kids and later was a Peace Corps Regional Youth Officer with the Government of Namibia. Returning from Africa, he completed a M.S. in International Agricultural Development at the University of California, Davis. His thesis, a critical ethnography, was titled, “Aqui Somos Pobres, Alla Somos Ricos. Language, Education and Social Segregation: Neocolonial Strategies in the Reproduction of Inequality.” The study was situated in a rural farmworker community in the Central Valley through a Cooperative Extension collaboration. It documented multiple forms of social segregation and institutional racism operating in the small town’s public institutions and community spaces. Further questions arose after finishing his first graduate program, particularly around the potential for politically engaged scholarship and over the role universities should play in society. This dissertation is a product of that inquiry and his search for effective, relevant problem solving. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My great reward has been to learn from and be inspired by the scholars in this narrative - Don Villarejo, Dean MacCannell, Isao Fujimoto, Walter Goldschmidt, Ernesto Galarza and Paul Taylor. The sacrifices they endured, commitments they shouldered and values they defended move me to continue the work. I hope that they will do so for you as well. A number of mentors, instructors and scholars helped with my research and development as an academic. My dissertation committee was the ideal mix of academic disciplines, personalities and support. Gil Gillespie, a Cornell rural sociologist and Midwestern farmer, embodies the spirit of the work and its academic history. Sofia Villenas, among the top educational anthropologists in the country, supported me with tough love by listening gently and demanding the highest standards of academic rigor. Scott Peters, another Midwesterner, walked this journey with me balancing many roles – personal and professional; as a friend and mentor he guided the research and supported me at critical junctures of the work. A number of others at Cornell stepped in to teach and assist, foremost among these were Butch Wilson, John Forester, and Tom Lyson. Finally, students from Cornell’s New World Ecology and Agriculture Group (NWEAG) were an academically diverse mix of scholars who worked collaboratively in promoting sustainable agriculture during the years I was on campus – we learned and organized together. My research really began at UC Davis in 2000. During my two years there, I got to know Isao Fujimoto who mentored me as he had so many other students over the years. Numerous other faculty at Davis contributed to my academic learning and development as a scholar including: Al Medvitz, Dave Campbell, Jim Grieshop, Martin Kenney, Mark Van Horn, Karen Watson Gegeo, Frank Hirtz, John Stewart, Al vi Sokolow and Orville Thompson. I was also as a member of the Baggins End (Domes) cooperative where I had an opportunity to live on the university’s Sustainable Research Area, an experience which had a tremendous impact on my understanding of how an integrated education should be experienced by learning through practice and participating in consensus decision making. Finally, I wanted to acknowledge the sacrifices that my family has endured while I worked on this research. In particular, I want to let my son, Aidan Bertrand O’Connell, know that he is always with me and that this work is for him and his future. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch . v Acknowledgements . vi Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION – THE PAST IS PROLOGUE . 1 2. POLITICALLY ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP . 11 3. RESEARCH METHODS . 24 PEDAGOGIES OF POLITICALLY ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP PART I: ENGAGING INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE 4. PAUL SCHUSTER TAYLOR – STUDY YOUR TARGETS . 46 Profile of Practice: Military Training, Education and Early Scholarship Scholarship in the Struggle: The Dust Bowl and Great Depression Profile of Practice: Confronting Californian Agribusiness Scholarship in the Struggle: Cornell Collaboration – Paul W. Gates Scholarship in the Struggle: Reclamation, Land and Water Profile of Practice: Political Pressure and Making Change 5. ERNESTO GALARZA – EXPERIENCING TERROR AS EDUCATION . 108 Scholarship in the Struggle: Union Organizing against Agribusiness Profile of Practice: Experiencing Terror as Education PART II: BUILDING DEMOCRATIC THEORY 6. WALTER GOLDSCHMIDT – ILLUSTRATE THE OBVIOUS . 155 Scholarship in the Struggle: As You Sow Scholarship in the Struggle: Scientific Study and Political Outcomes Scholarship in the Struggle: A Baptism of Fire Profile of Practice: Visiting Goldschmidt 7. DEAN MACCANNELL – THE POETRY OF STATISTICS . 193 Profile of Practice: Becoming a Scholar Scholarship in the Struggle: Macrosocial Accounting Profile of Practice: Scholarship in the Era of Counterculture Scholarship in the Struggle: The Goldschmidt Retests Profile of Practice: The Goldschmidt Retest Scholarship in the Struggle: Recognizing Counternarrative Profile of Practice: The Ag School at Davis Profile of Practice: Westlands Water District viii PART III: ORGANIZING COMMUNITY THROUGH EDUCATION 8. DON VILLAREJO – TAKE A BATH AMONG THE PEOPLE . 260 Profile of Practice: Chicago Upbringing and Education Profile of Practice: An Unconventional Scholar Profile of Practice: Organizing Farmworkers, Creating Institutions Scholarship in the Struggle: Research for Action Profile of Practice: Real Political Education – On The Ground Scholarship in the Struggle: Investigating California Agribusiness Profile of Practice: Community-based Research 9. ISAO FUJIMOTO – THE STUDY OF CHANGE . 310 Profile of Practice: Upbringing, Internment and Education Profile of Practice: War Stories Profile of Practice: Applied Behavioral Studies Profile of Practice: Building Community, Using Networks Profile of Practice: Advice and Answers Scholarship in the Struggle: Getting the Straight Dope Profile of Practice: Keep Moving Ahead 10. DISCUSSION – PEDAGOGIES IN NARRATIVE . 345 Toward a Theory of Democracy Pedagogies of Politically Engaged Scholarship Agency within Narrative 11. CONCLUSION – LESSONS FOR ACTION . 365 REFERENCES . 372 ix “The whole trend in education is to put the scholar into the actual work of the world” Liberty Hyde Bailey (1909) “The intellectual no longer has to play the role of an adviser. The Project, tactics and goals to be adopted are a matter for those who do the fighting. What the intellectual can do is provide the instruments, and at the present time this is the historian’s essential role. What’s effectively needed is a ramified, penetrative perception of the present . a topological and geological survey of the battlefield – that is the intellectual’s