
Aharon deGrassiCollege of the Desert · Geography
Aharon deGrassi
Doctor of Philosophy
About
19
Publications
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Introduction
I am an inter-disciplinary geographer working on the political economy of rural development in Africa. My interests are in agrarian studies, political ecology, and development studies. I am interested in the geographical ways that states and societies interrelate, and how those interrelations shape hunger, poverty and practical opportunities for broadly improving people’s well-being.
Publications
Publications (19)
The agronomic writings of influential theorist and independence leader Amílcar Cabral contain a hitherto underappreciated dialectical approach that is environmental, nonreductive, spatialised, nonteleological, and anticolonial, with significance for geographies that are simultaneously critical, physical, Southern, Black, African, and decolonial. Ca...
For readers looking for an up-to-date, accessible, informed account of Amílcar Cabral’s life, thought, and work, Peter Karibe Mendy’s book is a unique and useful contribution. Through ten chronological chapters, Mendy’s narrative is clear and engaging, and the book’s concise writing draws from a great range of existing literature on Cabral, includi...
This assessment of the agricultural systems of 47 African countries develops a typology for Ecological Organic Agriculture (EOA) and a Monitoring & Evaluation Framework, with a view to mainstreaming EOA as per the decision of the African heads of State.
Reviews agricultural policy and legal frameworks of 47 African countries with a view to mainstreaming Ecological Organic Agriculture (EOA), and critiques Farm Input Subsidy Programmes as a mostly inefficient way of using resources. Develops a typology for assessing country progress towards organic agriculture. Provides monitoring and evaluation fra...
Angola’s staggering oil wealth and histories of conflict and inequality make for tempting binary narratives of power and exploitation, which, however, suffice neither for accuracy nor action. This article uses a relational geographical perspective to go beyond simple binaries by jointly analysing the central February 4th Plaza in the heart of Malan...
This class explores how people produce African geographies – we will engage a variety of materials, including texts, film, maps, music, art, and social media produced primarily in Africa and by Africans. Students will have the opportunity to gain in-depth familiarity of a country through a student research project on a topic of their choice. The cl...
A new detailed map of mainly pre-colonial paths in Africa can be derived from a late 19th Century map series. The map is useful less for its precision than for suggesting new understandings and questions about the roles of indigenous shaping of landscapes of connection. While further research is needed on specific areas and changes over time, appre...
The state in Africa has sometimes been studied using spatial metaphors that entail certain limitations. The metaphor of a ‘gatekeeper state’ relies on ambiguous notions of the gate, narrow pathways, islands, and vast spaces, as well as binaries of internal/external and island/non-island, which occlude spatial relations that are important to underst...
Numerous large scale land acquisitions have occurred in Angola since partial political and economic liberalization in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and further increased after 2002 and the end of armed conflict. They have occurred in conjunction with the emergence of a range of large state-coordinated agricultural projects, often by foreign contr...
Through a geographic and relational reinterpretation of the start of armed nationalist struggle in Angola, this article helps to critique and move beyond common interpretations of Angola (and Africa more generally) as characterized by long-standing socio-spatial divisions. Rather than an economic protest in an enclave, the so-called «cotton revolt»...
Fueled by a massive offshore deep-water oil boom, Angola has since the end of war in 2002 undertaken a huge, complex, and contradictory national reconstruction program whose character and dynamics have yet to be carefully studied and analyzed. What explains the patterns of such projects, who is benefitting from them, and how? The dissertation is gr...
The lack of quality roads in Africa is commonly mentioned as a key constraint to agricultural growth and hence rural poverty alleviation. Despite the importance of transport, there is inadequate independent, rigorous research on the precise links between poverty, transport and agrarian change in Africa. Transport projects and policies are often bas...
The "neopatrimonial" character of African states has increasingly been invoked to explain the politics of agricultural stagnation across the continent. This article summarizes the literature on neopatrimonialism, reviewing how analysts have applied the concept in studies of food and agricultural policies in Africa. It then draws out some of the key...
Concern about the future of agriculture, particularly in Africa, has mounted again in recent years. This paper reviews applications of innovative methods for planning for the future – including scenario planning, future search, search conference, appreciative inquiry, and open space technology – and notes some limitations. Pro-poor planning for the...
This paper recasts the debate over biotechnology by moving past overly general hyperbole, and instead empirically evaluating current experiences with genetically modified crops in Africa. The debate is moved from hypothetical risks, to actual results. The ‘appropriateness’ of GM cotton, sweet potatoes, and maize is evaluated using six criteria wide...
Despite proliferating claims that Ghanaian forestry is collaborative and community-based, most powers over forestry remain concentrated in an unrepresentative and unaccountable centralized forestry administration. In ways that presage current negotiations over the principle of subsidiarity, various regimes in Ghana throughout the twentieth century...
This chapter explicitly counters conventional policy wisdom on the locus of change in agro-environmental technology in Africa. I show which assumptions are unfounded, under what historical conditions such assumptions were made, with what affect, and what is a more precise understanding of agro-environmental change. Academics, policymakers and the p...