Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

2-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Earth & Environmental Sciences

Advisor

Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Committee Members

Cindi Katz

Barbara Katz Rothman

Jonathan Deutsch

Subject Categories

Geography | Human Geography | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Keywords

power relations, placemaking, animal agriculture, human animal interaction

Abstract

Livestock farming in the Hudson River Valley, and selling meat in New York City farmers’ markets, are activities bounded by a region, and heavily influenced by place. Farming is represented in this project as a material linkage between urban and rural, both shaped by power relations, and the respective places of production and consumption. Interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, this study investigates placemaking and power dynamics on farms, their marketplaces, and spaces in between, during normal market conditions, and those which are anything but normal. The findings expose the reader to the representations of place in a local, niche market, and the fluid exchange of power therein. Using ethnographic research methods, this study encountered humans in the Hudson River Valley who raise non-human animals for meat.

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