About my research

My research is concerned with the struggles and successes groups face in working to improve the environment, food, agriculture, and community. I am especially focused on the socio-cultural processes that shape who wins and loses in agri-environmental arrangements, and how fairer and more just conditions are achieved.

I study how both urban and rural dwellers experience food and agriculture, particularly as it relates to community-led initiatives such as community gardens, urban agriculture, cooperatives, and agri-environmental governance schemes. This includes examining the relationships between frames, identities, practices and development outcomes. I have also played a lead role in studies of accountability and social sustainability in agri-environmental governance networks in New Zealand.

My research methods tend to be participatory and qualitative including interviews, focus groups, content analysis, and participant observation. However, I do use mixed methods such as surveys and network analysis. The outputs of my research include both academic journals and community reports. I work collaboratively with students on research projects, aspiring to improve learning outcomes and opportunities.

Current research interests:

• The struggles and successes of working across social, spatial, and temporal distance to create justice, fairness, and equity

• The construction and enactment of accountability and legitimation in governance networks

• The relationship between, and determinants and outcomes of, cooperation and competition in development

• The performance and implications of expert knowledge, activism, and symbolic tensions therein

• The interconnections between local and global conditions at the intersection of economic, political, and cultural change