Territoriality and the Technics of Drylands Science in Palestine and North America

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8967950
AutoresOmar Tesdell (0000-0002-5179-9532, Birzeit University, autor correspondente), Omar Imseeh Tesdell
Ano2015
Volume47
Fascículo3
Páginas570-573
Data de publicação2015-07-28
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020743815000586
OpenAlexW2217763032
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas7

At the turn of the 20th century, agricultural experts in several countries assembled a new agro-scientific field: dryland farming. Their agricultural research practices concomitantly fashioned a new agro-ecological zone—the drylands—as the site of agronomic intervention. As part of this effort, American scientists worked in concert with colleagues in the emerging Zionist movement to investigate agricultural practices and crops in Palestine and neighboring regions, where nonirrigated or rainfed agriculture had long been practiced. In my larger manuscript project, I consider how the reorganization of rainfed farming as dryfarming is central to the history of both the Middle East and North America, where it was closely related to modern forms of power, sovereignty, and territoriality. I suggest that American interest in dryfarming science emerged out of a practical need to propel and sustain colonization of the Great Plains, but later became a joint effort of researchers from several emerging settler enterprises, including Australia, Canada, and the Zionist movement. In contrast to a naturally ocurring bioregion, I argue that the drylands spatiality was engineered through, rather than outside, the territorialization of modern power

Agriculture · Ancient history · Archaeology · Biodiversity · Bioregion · Dryland farming · Environmental ethics · Geography · Palestine · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sovereignty · Territoriality · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Ecology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law