Campus Directory

Division Social Sciences Division

Department/College/Unit Environmental Studies Department

Title Associate Professor

Affiliation Faculty

Other UCSC Campus Affiliation Community Studies Program
Science & Justice Research Center
Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas
Coastal Science & Policy Program

Faculty Type Regular Faculty

Areas of Expertise Agroecology and Agriculture
Sociology of Development
Environmental Justice

Web Site

Primary Office Location Interdisciplinary Sciences Building
426

Office Hours No office hours fall 2022 - on sabbatical.

Mail Stop Environmental Studies

Biography, Education and Training

Ph.D., Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

M.S., Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

B.S., Development Sociology/Natural Resource Management, Cornell University

Summary of Expertise

Agri-food systems, environmental sociology, political ecology, globalization and development, ownership and access to land

Research Interests

I do qualitative sociological research on the political economy of the global agro-food system. I am particularly interested in how transnational economic processes shape access to food, land, and other natural resources globally. My current projects explore the financial sector's growing interest in buying farmland, as well as the dynamics of the agri-food technology sector. My first book, Fields of Gold: Financing the Global Land Rush, was released in 2020 by Cornell University Press. 

Selected Publications

Book

Fairbairn, Madeleine. 2020. Fields of Gold: Financing the Global Land Rush. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Open access. 

Articles

Fairbairn, Madeleine, Zenia Kish, and Julie Guthman. 2022. "Pitching agri-food tech: Performativity and non-disruptive disruption in Silicon Valley." Journal of Cultural Economy. Online First.

Reisman, Emily and Madeleine Fairbairn. 2020. "Agri-food systems and the anthropocene." Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 11(3): 687-697.

Fairbairn, Madeleine, James LaChance, Kathryn De Master, and Loka Ashwood. 2020. “In vino veritas, in aqua lucrum: Farmland investment, environmental uncertainty, and groundwater access in California’s Cuyama Valley.” Agriculture and Human Values. 38:285-299.

Ashwood, Loka, John Canfield, Madeleine Fairbairn, and Kathryn De Master. 2020. “What owns the land: The corporate organization of farmland investment.” Journal of Peasant Studies. 49(2): 233-262.

Egerer, Monika and Madeleine Fairbairn. 2018. "Gated gardens: Effects of urbanization on community formation and commons management in community gardens." Geoforum 96: 61-69.

Kish, Zenia and Madeleine Fairbairn. 2018. "Investing for profit, investing for impact: Moral performances in agricultural investment projects." Environment and Planning A. 50(3): 569-588. 

Fairbairn, Madeleine. 2015 “Foreignization, financialization, and land grab regulation.” Journal of Agrarian Change. 15(4): 581-591.

Fairbairn, Madeleine. 2014 “‘Like gold with yield’: Evolving intersections between farmland and finance.” Journal of Peasant Studies. 41(5): 777-795.

Fairbairn, Madeleine, Jonathan Fox, S. Ryan Isakson, Michael Levien, Nancy Peluso, Shahra Razavi, Ian Scoones, and K. Sivaramakrishnan. 2014. “Global agrarian transformations: New directions in agrarian political economy.” (Editorial introduction to special issue.) Journal of Peasant Studies. 41(5): 777-795.

Fairbairn, Madeleine. 2013. “Indirect dispossession: Domestic power imbalances and foreign access to land in Mozambique.” Development and Change. 44(2): 335-356.

Fairbairn, Madeleine. 2012. “Framing transformation: The counter-hegemonic potential of food sovereignty in the U.S. context.” Agriculture and Human Values. 29(2): 217-230.

Courses ENVS 80F Introduction to Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems
ENVS 100/L Ecology and Society
ENVS 158 Political Ecology