This project seeks to better understand the historical-geographical underpinnings of international agricultural development policies and practices undertaken by the United States government and private corporations in the post-World War II period. It does so by documenting and analyzing public (the United States government - specifically the United Stated Department of Agriculture, USDA) and private (the International Harvester Corporation, IHC), agricultural extension efforts that targeted the American South as a site of underdevelopment in the first decades of the 20th century. Scholars have traced the roots of the concept of 'development' within the European context to the advent of modern liberalism and the age of empires in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but few have brought the insights of postcolonial theory to an understanding of American forms of development. As a result, the understanding of the historical and geographical contexts that gave rise to US forms of development is partial and limited. The specific goals of this research project are: 1) to query the history and nature of development practices through the case of agricultural extension services; 2) to question how and why the South became a space of difference; and 3) to understand the ways in which experts, expert knowledge, and public policies, were shaped and in turn helped shape the social construction (class, race, and gender) of the US South in the first decades of the 20th century, and by so doing, to contribute to an understanding of the fluidity and complexity of bio-political efforts to develop the world in the post-World War II period. Using a case-study approach, and through archival and document analysis, the investigator will analyze IHC's and the USDA's agricultural extension practices and encounters in three states (Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas) in the first three decades of the 20th century (1900-1929). The research will be accomplished primarily through the analysis of the content, language, and image style of archival material (accounts of agricultural extension agents, photographs of extension activities, contemporary documents produced by IHC and USDA, particularly their educational pamphlets, regional and thematic maps, letters between agents and government and corporate officials, contemporary newspaper accounts) held at ten different institutions throughout the United States. The research will provide an in-depth and contextually-rich exemplar of the ways in which the language, practices, and ideas that underpin contemporary US development policies were formulated and took shape in the early 20th century in the American South. Ultimately, this project will contribute to a more complete understanding of the making of American development practices, an understanding that is crucial for any critical examination of its contemporary non-military interventions throughout the world.
By involving students from underrepresented groups this research project will enhance the goal of diversifying geographical education and research, and will broaden the scholarly infrastructure for research by forming educational partnerships with four historically-Black institutions of higher education. This research will be disseminated widely through teaching activities, publications, conference presentations, and lectures at universities in Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Since the research findings have the potential to speak to contemporary policy debates in terms of agricultural extension services and agricultural development, the findings will also be disseminated through discussions and presentations at appropriate local, regional and national agricultural policy forums.
