RICE, STIAN A., Ph.D., May 2018 GEOGRAPHY
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RICE, STIAN A., Ph.D., May 2018 GEOGRAPHY FOOD SYSTEM REORGANIZATION AND VULNERABILITY TO CRISIS: A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF FAMINE GENESIS (400 PP.) Dissertation Advisor: James Tyner, Ph.D. This study investigates the relationship between the reorganization of food provisioning systems and large-scale food crises through a comparative historical analysis of three famines: Hawaii in the 1820s, Madagascar in the 1920s, and Cambodia in the 1970s. The study identifies and analyzes the structural transformations–that is, changes to the relationships between producers and consumers–that make food provisioning systems more vulnerable to failure. Up to now, economic and political explanations for food crisis have dominated the literature. These approaches tend to focus on a small set of spatially and temporally proximate conditions and neglect important socio-ecological interactions. Using approaches from comparative historical analysis, political ecology, and Marxist political economy, this study focuses on the role of large-scale and long-term socio-ecological processes in famine genesis. For each case, the study identifies the causal mechanisms and interactions that precipitated famine. These results are compared using contextualized mechanistic analysis to reveal structural similarities and differences between cases. On this basis, the study develops a novel framework for crisis evolution that identifies two distinct temporal phases and five different types of causal mechanisms involved in food system failure. The framework contributes to current work in food studies and offers the potential for structural indicators of future crisis. With current food systems undergoing dramatic transformation in response to population growth and movement, political upheaval, climate change, and market expansion, it is imperative that policy makers identify and eschew the structural changes that are precursors to disaster. FOOD SYSTEM REORGANIZATION AND VULNERABILITY TO CRISIS: A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF FAMINE GENESIS A dissertation submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Stian A. Rice May 2018 © Copyright All rights reserved Dissertation written by Stian A. Rice B.A., University of Rochester, 1996 M.A., Kent State University, 2012 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2018 Approved by Dr. James Tyner , Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Dr. Mandy Munro-Stasiuk , Members, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Dr. V. Kelly Turner ______ _ Dr. Joshua Stacher________________________ Dr. Babacar Mbaye________________________ Accepted by Dr. Scott Sheridan_______________________, Chair, Department of Geography Dr. James L. Blank_______________________, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of contents................................................................................................................................................. iv List of figures ...................................................................................................................................................... vi List of tables ........................................................................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................. xi 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 2 The body ........................................................................................................................................................... 3 Famine and food provisioning systems .......................................................................................................... 4 Research design overview ............................................................................................................................... 7 Organization of this manuscript ..................................................................................................................... 8 The past in the present .................................................................................................................................... 9 2. The famine literature ...................................................................................................................................... 11 The shifting understandings of famine ........................................................................................................ 12 Limitations .................................................................................................................................................... 20 3. Research design ............................................................................................................................................. 23 Ontological and epistemological frameworks .............................................................................................. 24 Cases ............................................................................................................................................................... 32 Case study methodology ............................................................................................................................... 34 Comparison of cases ...................................................................................................................................... 45 Benefits .......................................................................................................................................................... 47 4. The Hawaiian Sandalwood Famines ............................................................................................................ 50 A brief history of Hawaiian famines ............................................................................................................. 52 Food provisioning in the Hawaiian Islands ................................................................................................. 58 Transformation: 1778-1827.......................................................................................................................... 98 Food system stress, reorganization, and collapse ..................................................................................... 126 Conclusions: sandalwood and feudal-capitalism ...................................................................................... 145 5. Madagascar’s ‘Cactus War’ .......................................................................................................................... 149 iv Famine histories of the ‘deep South’ .......................................................................................................... 152 Food provisioning in the pastoral south .................................................................................................... 157 Transformation: 1769-1924 ........................................................................................................................ 184 The collapse of cactus pastoralism ............................................................................................................ 208 Conclusions: Madagascar’s first modern famine...................................................................................... 228 6. War and reconstruction famine in Cambodia ............................................................................................ 231 Famine, genocide and the ‘Standard Total View’ ......................................................................................234 Pre-war food provisioning .......................................................................................................................... 241 Wartime transformation: 1967-1975 ..........................................................................................................258 Food provisioning failure on the eve of revolution: April 1975 ................................................................ 277 Transformation under the CPK: 1975-1979 .............................................................................................. 284 Food provisioning failure under the Khmer Rouge ................................................................................... 313 Conclusions .................................................................................................................................................. 323 7. The structure of food system failure ........................................................................................................... 327 Primary mechanisms by case ......................................................................................................................329 Phases and causal mechanisms .................................................................................................................. 333 Mechanism interactions .............................................................................................................................. 339 Crisis indicators .......................................................................................................................................... 348 Food system traps......................................................................................................................................