Ryan Isakson
Biographic Data
| ID | 135492 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ryan Isakson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ryan |
| FAMILY NAME | Isakson |
| SIGNATURE | ISAKSON R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4058-8887 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 512 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Cultivating Climate Precarity: Mechanisms of Surplus Capture and Immiserizing Growth in Guatemala's Horticultural Export Sector
In recent decades, prominent development organizations have promoted market inclusion and agricultural value chain integration as pathways to rural prosperity in the Global South. Focusing upon the experiences of Indigenous Kaqchikel peasants in Guatemala's horticultural export sector, this paper offers a cautionary tale. Drawing upon Carmen Diana Deere's pioneering work on the political economy of agrarian change, I examine how mechanisms of sur…
Private finance for food system climate adaptation: Opportunity or contradiction
Speculative Harvests
Risky Returns: The Implications of Financialization in the Food System
This article examines the rise of financialization in the agrifood sector and maps out both the way it has unfolded as well as its implications. The article argues that financialization has opened up new arenas for capital accumulation in the agrifood sector; reshaped the agrifood firms in ways that respond to demands of shareholders; and transformed everyday practices of food and social provisioning. The authors make the case that these three br…
New Directions in Agrarian Political Economy: Global Agrarian Transformations, Volume 1
The complex dynamics of agriculture as a financial asset: Introduction to symposium
The rise of flex crops and commodities: Implications for Research
As a concept and phenomenon, 'flex crops and commodities' feature 'multiple-ness' and 'flexible-ness' as two distinct but intertwined dimensions. These key crops and commodities are shaped by the changing global context that is itself remoulded by the convergence of multiple crises and various responses. The greater multiple-ness of crops and commodity uses has altered the patterns of their production, circulation and consumption, as novel dimens…
Introduction to a Symposium on Global Finance and the Agri‐food Sector: Risk and Regulation
This symposium introduction brings together two debates; the debate on global food prices and speculation, and the debate on so‐called global ‘land investment’ or ‘land grabbing’. Both debates are examining two sides of the same phenomenon – the growing role of private financial investors in the global agri‐food value chains and the myriad consequences of it. The symposium moves beyond the identification of finance as an exogenous factor to the t…
Derivatives for Development? Small-Farmer Vulnerability and the Financialization of Climate Risk Management
While agricultural production has always been a risky endeavour, it has become even more so in the current context of climatic change and increasing market uncertainty. Meanwhile, the rollback of state protections has rendered small-scale farmers, especially marginalized peasant producers in the Global South, particularly vulnerable to these contemporary stressors. This essay critically evaluates the contemporary roll-out of financial derivatives…
Maize Diversity and the Political Economy of Agrarian Restructuring in Guatemala
The neoliberal restructuring of agriculture is often predicated on the promise of a more efficient food system: other objectives, such as access to food, the environmental sustainability of production practices, the nutritional composition of diets and the rights of food producers, are largely ignored. In this paper, I document how the liberalization of trade and agricultural policies in Guatemala has undermined the latter set of objectives, ther…
Introduction: New directions in agrarian political economy
For four decades, The Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS) has served as a principal arena for the formation and dissemination of cutting-edge research and theory. It is globally renowned as a key site for documenting and analyzing variegated trajectories of agrarian change across space and time. Over the years, authors have taken new angles as they reinvigorated classic questions and debates about agrarian transition, resource access and rural livel…
Food and finance: The Financial Transformation of Agro-Food Supply Chains
This article draws upon existing literature to document and describe the rise of finance in food provisioning. It queries the role of financialization in the contemporary food crisis and analyzes its impacts upon the distribution of power and wealth within and along the generalized agro-food supply chain. A systematic treatment of key nodes in the supply chain reveals four key insights: (1) the line between finance and food provisioning has becom…
Market Provisioning and the Conservation of Crop Biodiversity: An Analysis of Peasant Livelihoods and Maize Diversity in the Guatemalan Highlands
No hay ganancia en la milpa: The agrarian question, food sovereignty, and the on-farm conservation of agrobiodiversity in the Guatemalan highlands
Although they receive little recognition for their contribution, peasant farmers in the global South play a fundamental role in securing the long-term global food supply. Via their self-sufficient agricultural practices, they cultivate the crop genetic diversity that enables food crops to adapt to changing environmental conditions. In this paper I draw upon empirical data from the Guatemalan center of agricultural biodiversity to investigate the …
Eliminating market distortions, perpetuating rural inequality: An evaluation of market-assisted land reform in Guatemala
The signing of the Guatemalan Peace Accords in 1996 sought to end nearly four decades of civil war and to rectify what many have identified as the root cause of the violent conflict: the country's extremely unequal distribution of land. To achieve this aim, the agreement embraces the strategy of market-assisted land reform. The agrarian strategy has done little to level the country's agrarian structure, however, as the quantity of land that has b…
The rise of flex crops and commodities: Implications for Research
As a concept and phenomenon, 'flex crops and commodities' feature 'multiple-ness' and 'flexible-ness' as two distinct but intertwined dimensions. These key crops and commodities are shaped by the changing global context that is itself remoulded by the convergence of multiple crises and various responses. The greater multiple-ness of crops and commodity uses has altered the patterns of their production, circulation and consumption, as novel dimens…
Food and finance: The Financial Transformation of Agro-Food Supply Chains
This article draws upon existing literature to document and describe the rise of finance in food provisioning. It queries the role of financialization in the contemporary food crisis and analyzes its impacts upon the distribution of power and wealth within and along the generalized agro-food supply chain. A systematic treatment of key nodes in the supply chain reveals four key insights: (1) the line between finance and food provisioning has becom…
No hay ganancia en la milpa: The agrarian question, food sovereignty, and the on-farm conservation of agrobiodiversity in the Guatemalan highlands
Although they receive little recognition for their contribution, peasant farmers in the global South play a fundamental role in securing the long-term global food supply. Via their self-sufficient agricultural practices, they cultivate the crop genetic diversity that enables food crops to adapt to changing environmental conditions. In this paper I draw upon empirical data from the Guatemalan center of agricultural biodiversity to investigate the …
Introduction: New directions in agrarian political economy
For four decades, The Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS) has served as a principal arena for the formation and dissemination of cutting-edge research and theory. It is globally renowned as a key site for documenting and analyzing variegated trajectories of agrarian change across space and time. Over the years, authors have taken new angles as they reinvigorated classic questions and debates about agrarian transition, resource access and rural livel…
Eliminating market distortions, perpetuating rural inequality: An evaluation of market-assisted land reform in Guatemala
The signing of the Guatemalan Peace Accords in 1996 sought to end nearly four decades of civil war and to rectify what many have identified as the root cause of the violent conflict: the country's extremely unequal distribution of land. To achieve this aim, the agreement embraces the strategy of market-assisted land reform. The agrarian strategy has done little to level the country's agrarian structure, however, as the quantity of land that has b…
Derivatives for Development? Small-Farmer Vulnerability and the Financialization of Climate Risk Management
While agricultural production has always been a risky endeavour, it has become even more so in the current context of climatic change and increasing market uncertainty. Meanwhile, the rollback of state protections has rendered small-scale farmers, especially marginalized peasant producers in the Global South, particularly vulnerable to these contemporary stressors. This essay critically evaluates the contemporary roll-out of financial derivatives…
Risky Returns: The Implications of Financialization in the Food System
This article examines the rise of financialization in the agrifood sector and maps out both the way it has unfolded as well as its implications. The article argues that financialization has opened up new arenas for capital accumulation in the agrifood sector; reshaped the agrifood firms in ways that respond to demands of shareholders; and transformed everyday practices of food and social provisioning. The authors make the case that these three br…
Market Provisioning and the Conservation of Crop Biodiversity: An Analysis of Peasant Livelihoods and Maize Diversity in the Guatemalan Highlands
The complex dynamics of agriculture as a financial asset: Introduction to symposium
Maize Diversity and the Political Economy of Agrarian Restructuring in Guatemala
The neoliberal restructuring of agriculture is often predicated on the promise of a more efficient food system: other objectives, such as access to food, the environmental sustainability of production practices, the nutritional composition of diets and the rights of food producers, are largely ignored. In this paper, I document how the liberalization of trade and agricultural policies in Guatemala has undermined the latter set of objectives, ther…
Introduction to a Symposium on Global Finance and the Agri‐food Sector: Risk and Regulation
This symposium introduction brings together two debates; the debate on global food prices and speculation, and the debate on so‐called global ‘land investment’ or ‘land grabbing’. Both debates are examining two sides of the same phenomenon – the growing role of private financial investors in the global agri‐food value chains and the myriad consequences of it. The symposium moves beyond the identification of finance as an exogenous factor to the t…
Cultivating Climate Precarity: Mechanisms of Surplus Capture and Immiserizing Growth in Guatemala's Horticultural Export Sector
In recent decades, prominent development organizations have promoted market inclusion and agricultural value chain integration as pathways to rural prosperity in the Global South. Focusing upon the experiences of Indigenous Kaqchikel peasants in Guatemala's horticultural export sector, this paper offers a cautionary tale. Drawing upon Carmen Diana Deere's pioneering work on the political economy of agrarian change, I examine how mechanisms of sur…
Eliminating market distortions, perpetuating rural inequality: An evaluation of market-assisted land reform in Guatemala
The signing of the Guatemalan Peace Accords in 1996 sought to end nearly four decades of civil war and to rectify what many have identified as the root cause of the violent conflict: the country's extremely unequal distribution of land. To achieve this aim, the agreement embraces the strategy of market-assisted land reform. The agrarian strategy has done little to level the country's agrarian structure, however, as the quantity of land that has b…
No hay ganancia en la milpa: The agrarian question, food sovereignty, and the on-farm conservation of agrobiodiversity in the Guatemalan highlands
Although they receive little recognition for their contribution, peasant farmers in the global South play a fundamental role in securing the long-term global food supply. Via their self-sufficient agricultural practices, they cultivate the crop genetic diversity that enables food crops to adapt to changing environmental conditions. In this paper I draw upon empirical data from the Guatemalan center of agricultural biodiversity to investigate the …
Market Provisioning and the Conservation of Crop Biodiversity: An Analysis of Peasant Livelihoods and Maize Diversity in the Guatemalan Highlands
Maize Diversity and the Political Economy of Agrarian Restructuring in Guatemala
The neoliberal restructuring of agriculture is often predicated on the promise of a more efficient food system: other objectives, such as access to food, the environmental sustainability of production practices, the nutritional composition of diets and the rights of food producers, are largely ignored. In this paper, I document how the liberalization of trade and agricultural policies in Guatemala has undermined the latter set of objectives, ther…
Introduction: New directions in agrarian political economy
For four decades, The Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS) has served as a principal arena for the formation and dissemination of cutting-edge research and theory. It is globally renowned as a key site for documenting and analyzing variegated trajectories of agrarian change across space and time. Over the years, authors have taken new angles as they reinvigorated classic questions and debates about agrarian transition, resource access and rural livel…
Food and finance: The Financial Transformation of Agro-Food Supply Chains
This article draws upon existing literature to document and describe the rise of finance in food provisioning. It queries the role of financialization in the contemporary food crisis and analyzes its impacts upon the distribution of power and wealth within and along the generalized agro-food supply chain. A systematic treatment of key nodes in the supply chain reveals four key insights: (1) the line between finance and food provisioning has becom…
Introduction to a Symposium on Global Finance and the Agri‐food Sector: Risk and Regulation
This symposium introduction brings together two debates; the debate on global food prices and speculation, and the debate on so‐called global ‘land investment’ or ‘land grabbing’. Both debates are examining two sides of the same phenomenon – the growing role of private financial investors in the global agri‐food value chains and the myriad consequences of it. The symposium moves beyond the identification of finance as an exogenous factor to the t…
Derivatives for Development? Small-Farmer Vulnerability and the Financialization of Climate Risk Management
While agricultural production has always been a risky endeavour, it has become even more so in the current context of climatic change and increasing market uncertainty. Meanwhile, the rollback of state protections has rendered small-scale farmers, especially marginalized peasant producers in the Global South, particularly vulnerable to these contemporary stressors. This essay critically evaluates the contemporary roll-out of financial derivatives…
The complex dynamics of agriculture as a financial asset: Introduction to symposium
The rise of flex crops and commodities: Implications for Research
As a concept and phenomenon, 'flex crops and commodities' feature 'multiple-ness' and 'flexible-ness' as two distinct but intertwined dimensions. These key crops and commodities are shaped by the changing global context that is itself remoulded by the convergence of multiple crises and various responses. The greater multiple-ness of crops and commodity uses has altered the patterns of their production, circulation and consumption, as novel dimens…
New Directions in Agrarian Political Economy: Global Agrarian Transformations, Volume 1
Speculative Harvests
Risky Returns: The Implications of Financialization in the Food System
This article examines the rise of financialization in the agrifood sector and maps out both the way it has unfolded as well as its implications. The article argues that financialization has opened up new arenas for capital accumulation in the agrifood sector; reshaped the agrifood firms in ways that respond to demands of shareholders; and transformed everyday practices of food and social provisioning. The authors make the case that these three br…
Private finance for food system climate adaptation: Opportunity or contradiction
Cultivating Climate Precarity: Mechanisms of Surplus Capture and Immiserizing Growth in Guatemala's Horticultural Export Sector
In recent decades, prominent development organizations have promoted market inclusion and agricultural value chain integration as pathways to rural prosperity in the Global South. Focusing upon the experiences of Indigenous Kaqchikel peasants in Guatemala's horticultural export sector, this paper offers a cautionary tale. Drawing upon Carmen Diana Deere's pioneering work on the political economy of agrarian change, I examine how mechanisms of sur…
Economics (13 works) · Agriculture (12 works) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development (12 works) · Business (9 works) · Geography (8 works) · Food security (7 works) · Agrarian society (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Finance (5 works) · Financialization (5 works)