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Rachel Schurman

Protrait: Rachel Schurman

Associate Professor
Ph.D. 1993 University of Wisconsin Madison
Room 1078 Social Sciences
Phone: 612-624-1039
Email: schurman@umn.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Interest Areas

Sociology of Food and Agriculture, Social Movements, Political Sociology, International Political Economy, Environmental Sociology, Latin America.

Current Research

Prof. Schurman’s most recent book, Fighting for the Future of Food: Activists Vs. Agribusiness in the Struggle Over Biotechnology, analyzes social resistance to agricultural biotechnology and how it has shaped the development and deployment of genetically modified organisms around the world. The book explores the significance of industry structures, and activist and industry lifeworlds for the contemporary struggle over biotechnology.

Selected Publications

Book Cover:Fighting for the Future of FoodSchurman, Rachel and William A. Munro. 2010. Fighting for the Future of Food: Activists Vs. Agribusiness in the Struggle Over Biotechnology. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

"Targeting Capital: A Cultural Economy Approach to Understanding the Efficacy of Two Anti-Genetic Engineering Movements," with William A. Munro. 2009. American Journal of Sociology 115(1):155–202.

"Chain (Re)actions: Comparing Activist Mobilization Against Biotechnology in Britain and the U.S," with William A. Munro. 2009. Pp. 207-230 in Frontiers in Commodity Chains Research, edited by J. Bair. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

"Local Activism and the 'Biotechnology Project'," with William A. Munro. 2008. Pp. 59-78 in Reconstructing Biotechnologies: Critical Social Analysis, edited by G. Ruivenkamp, S. Hisano, and J. Jongerden, Wageningen: Wageningen Academic Publishers.

"Sustaining Outrage: Motivating Sensibilities in the U.S. Anti-GE Movement,” with William A. Munro. 2007. Pp. 145-176 in The Fight Over Food: Producers, Consumers, and Activists Challenge the Global Food System, edited by W. Wright and G. Middendorf. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

"Ideas, Thinkers, and Social Networks: The Process of Grievance Construction in the Anti-Genetic Engineering Movement," with William A. Munro. 2006. Theory and Society 35(1):1-38.