A-12/19 The Growth and Decline of the Western Roman Empire: Quantifying the Dynamics of Army Size, Territory, and Coinage
We model the Western Roman Empire from 500 BCE to 500 CE, aiming to understand the interdependent dynamics of army size, conquered territory and the production and debasement of coins within the empire. The relationships are represented through feed-back relationships and modelled mathematically via a dynamical system, specified as a set of ordinary differential equations.…
Les merA-11/19 The Role of Social Capital in Agricultural and Rural Development: Lessons Learnt from Case Studies in Seven Countries
The importance of social capital for agricultural and rural development is explored in this paper through the analysis of seven comprehensive case studies that have been carried out in the framework of the European RETHINK research programme. The case studies are based on rather different initiatives at the interface between agricultural and rural development in…
Les merA-10/19 Local Ambivalence to Diverse Mobilities – The Case of a Norwegian Rural Village
In Norway, immigration and tourism have recently become important drivers of diversity in rural communities. While rural migration mostly has been studied from the migrants’ perspective, this paper examines how long‐term residents in a Norwegian rural mountain resort characterised by seasonal tourism and labour immigration experience the flux of diverse migrants and how this affects…
Les merA-9/19 The potential impact of synthetic animal protein on livestock production: The new “war against agriculture”?
The rise of organic chemistry in the 1800s quickly lead to the realisation that products previously derived from plants and animals could be derived synthetically from alternative organic sources. Although it slowly became clear that there were limitations to this technology, the goal of producing animal protein synthetically has remained a tantalising prospect for scientists,…
Les merA-8/19 The failure of early demonstration agriculture on 19th Century model/pattern farms: lessons for contemporary demonstration
Purpose: Demonstration farming has been an important part of agricultural extension since the first decades of the twentieth century. While Seaman Knapp is often credited with developing demonstration farming, his son acknowledged that the concept has much earlier origins in the nineteenth century development of model/pattern farms. However, little is known of these early origins…
Les merA-7/19 The economic potential of agroecology: Empirical evidence from Europe
This article discusses the economic dimensions of agroecological farming systems in Europe. It firstly theoretically elaborates the reasons why, and under what conditions, agroecological farming systems have the potential to produce higher incomes than farms that follow the conventional logic. This theoretical exposition is then followed by a presentation of empirical material from a wide…
Les merA-6/19 Cultural Lock‐in and Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Case of Dairy/Beef Farmers in Norway
Meeting targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture will require the implementation of effective mitigation measures. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently recognised that to succeed we need to understand more about the conditions within which mitigation measures are applied, and for this, they note, we need insights from social science…
Les merA-5/19 Attitudes Toward Immigrants in Rural Norway. A Rural-Urban Comparison
Successful integration of immigrants is vital for rural areas facing population decline and labour shortage. Yet little is known about the role civil society plays in this process and about the factors that promote or hamper acceptance of immigrants by the local population. By using data from a national survey of the Norwegian population, this…
Les merA-4/19 Land ownership and distribution: Modeling the relationship to property law in the Norwegian case
sues of land distribution and ownership matter in an industrialized and post-industrial world. In rural areas, land is still the livelihood of a large portion of the people and thus central to the viability of local communities. Land ownership is also central to national politics through issues of self-sufficiency, food sovereignty and recourse management. This…
Les merA-3/19 Agriculture into the Future: New Technology, New Organisation and New Occupational Health and Safety Risks?
Agriculture is a hazardous industry, with a high frequency of injuries. As working life has changed over the last decades, so has also agriculture. In Norway, farm size has increased, and agriculture has become technology intensive with a high amount of automated milking systems (AMS) and is now more dependent on hired help. The aim…
Les merA-2/19 The political robot – The structural consequences of automated milking systems (AMS) in Norway
In this article, the aim is to explore how social aspects of the adoption and expansion of milking robots in Norwegian dairy farming are related to the political and structural changes in the sector. To explore the relationship between the implementation of automated milking systems (AMS) and structural developments, we used a qualitative methodology building…
Les merA-1/19 More-than-human geographies of property: Moving towards spatial justice with response-ability
Geoforum. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.12.012
Les merA-35/18 Introduction to culture, sustainability and the environmental realm
Long overshadowed by more utilitarian and economically-centred methodological approaches to sustainable development, the relationship between culture and sustainability can be considered an under-studied aspect within the sustainability and more recently resilience literature. The use of the term ‘culture’ in multiple contexts has generated a variety of interrelated meanings and definitions. Pretty and Pilgrim identify four…
Les merA-34/18 Between cooperative and private equity capital in the Norwegian food sector: how do the corporate, cultural and political environments make a difference?
I Bjørkhaug, Hilde, Andre Magnan og Geoffrey Lawrence (red.) The Financialization of Agri-Food Systems: Contested Transformations, s.198-220. London: Routledge
Les merA-33/18 Profit, aid and ethics in public financialization
I Bjørkhaug, Hilde, André Magnan og Geoffrey Lawrence (red.) The Financialization of Agri-Food Systems: Contested Transformations, s. 42-61. London: Routledge
Les merA-32/18 Introduction: the financialization of agri-food
I Bjørkhaug, Hilde, André Magnan og Geoffrey Lawrence (red.) The Financialization of Agri-Food Systems: Contested Transformations, s. 1-20. London: Routledge
Les merA-31/18 Preserving cultural landscapes: A cultural sustainability perspective
High-value agri-cultural landscapes across Europe are important for the local economy, maintaining biodiversity and preserving cultural heritage. However, studies indicate that the family farming cultures maintaining these landscapes are dying out and, consequently, the landscapes themselves are increasingly under threat. This chapter contends that the lack of focus of landscape policies on cultural sustainability plays…
Les merA-30/18 The moral dilemma of second-home owners’ position in the host community
Decisions regarding second home owners’ position in a host community (assigned rights, influence and further privileges – or the lack of such) have a moral dimension. At the core of the issue is the question of how local resources should be distributed between year-round residents and second home owners as a kind of hybrid between…
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