Self-Reflexive Area Studies

Matthias Middell (ed.)

Self-Reflexive Area Studies

Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2013

Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek D ie D eutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, M ikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verbreitung in elektronischen Systemen.

© Leipziger Universitätsverlag GmbH, L eipzig 2013 ww w .univerlag-leipzig.de ISB N 978-3-86583-789-9 ISSN 1863-2289

Table o f Contents

Matthias Middell Area Studies under the Global Condition. Debates on Where to Go with Regional or Area Studies in Germany G eert C a stry ck

Ex-Centring the Global Liminality and Interconnectedness in Urban Kigoma Isa Blumi Unsettling Paradigms: War in the Balkans, Refugees and the Forgotten Spaces o f Change Steffi Marung Peculiar Encounters with the “Black Continent”: Soviet Africanists in the Global 1960s and the Expansion o f the Discipline Markus-Michael Müller State Failure or State Formation? An African Perspective on Latin America ’s “New Violence ” Kristin SefTer Turning the Tables on International Financial Institutions Borrowing States and the Question o f Regime Martin Heckel Standardizing Islamic Finance: Questioning the traditional concept o f Orient Sarah-Ruth Sippel/Birgit Kemmerling Power Geometries o f Food Security: A Critical Area Studies Perspective

6

Table o f contents

Nadine Sieveking Culture as a Resource for Development? Critical Perspectives from the Field o f Contemporary African Dance Elisabetta Porcu Sacred Spaces Reloaded: New Trends in Shinto

Power Geometries of Food Security: A Critical Area Studies Perspective Sarah Ruth Sippel/Birgit Kemmerling

Introduction Traditionally, area studies determined their object of research with re gard to areas that were constructed as territorially fixed, politically and geographically defined, and socially and culturally coherent entities. As processes of globalization have increasingly revealed global entangle ments and interconnectedness, the imagination of the world as consist ing of “container spaces” of areas has become more and more chal lenged. At the same time, knowledge about different parts of the world has not lost but rather gained importance. This requires the rethinking of how area studies as a whole are understood as a discipline, the research practices of producing knowledge about “the other”, and the relationship to the so-called systematic disciplines. This chapter is located at the interface between area studies and cultural geography, while aiming to contribute to the debate concerning new ways of conducting critical area studies. While we are convinced that area studies make an indispensible contribution to a comprehensive understanding of global phenomena, we suggest that against the backdrop of the fundamental shifts both area studies and cultural geography have gone through over recent decades area studies will further benefit from three steps: First, the theoretical debates about new spatialities and social constructedness of spaces and places have inspiring potential for area studies; therefore, they should be more systematically integrated into theory and practice. Second, area studies need to make a shift from their often still area-oriented research focus to a more problem-oriented perspective in order to remove them selves from their territorial trap. Finally, although the claim to overcome “container space thinking” in social sciences has often been repeated, discussions have overwhelmingly remained on a theoretical level and only rarely have been applied to empirical research or been empirically grounded respectively. We think that precisely under “conditions of the

216

Sarah Ruth Sippel/Birgit Kemmerling

global”, empirical research and knowledge production is essential. Com ing from a geographical and an area studies background focussing on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), in this chapter we aim to con ceptually link recent debates within the context of the “spatial turn” in both disciplines and combine them with an investigation of food security concepts. We thereby seek to bring together theoretical assumptions on space with the often missing link of empirical analysis by focussing on power geometries of food security. These power geometries, we argue, are reflected along investment flows in natural resources taking place in the name of food security and are constructed and (re)produced in its concepts and practices. This problem-oriented focus requires dissolving both conceptually and empirically the boundaries of areas or nation-state approaches by considering flows of investments and concepts beyond these demarcations. We, furthermore, assume that complex powergeometries are constituted by tensions between flows and fixities, which in turn are embodied and negotiated in places. We focus on two exam ples of food security discourses and practices, starting from contexts in Egypt and Qatar as in both places food security has been an important priority in political discourses and practices, though quite differently realized. Egypt, as the most populous country in the MENA region and having high poverty rates and social inequality, represents the paradig matic case of a double dependency. On the one hand, half of the wheat demand, the central staple food of the population, is imported. As wheat imports mainly come from the US, Egypt has become the largest wheat importer worldwide. On the other hand, the international development assistance, with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as one of the main actors, regulates the financial flows sup porting domestic projects that attempt to overcome food dependency. In contrast, Qatar has one of the smallest populations in the region. Com manding huge oil and gas reserves, it is one of the richest countries in the world. Due to very low food production capacities and despite being fiscally sound, Qatar represents a case of food dependency from the world market, particularly prevalent since the global food crisis in 2007/08. Consequently, Qatar has launched a more proactive food secu rity strategy including worldwide investments in land properties. Our comparative analysis of these two paradigmatic cases of powergeometries of food security highlights the crucial differences that are often ignored in food security discourses that homogenize the MENA region. At the same time, it emphasises structural commonalities of the

Power Geometries o f Food Security

217

arenas in which the access to natural resources for food security is cur rently being renegotiated. We begin our analysis with the identification of underlying spatial concepts in prevailing food security discourses with regard to Egypt and Qatar while calling attention to the particulari ties of food security complexes in the two contexts. Here, we question implicit concepts of space that are constructed in food security discourse and ask which factors are used to describe food insecurity as well as which are the ones that are left out. Secondly, we are interested in how conceptualizations of food security are used in order to legitimize in vestments in natural resources currently undertaken by states within and beyond the region. We frame these investments in terms of the tensions between flows and fixities they create and, in turn, ask how these dis courses and practices lead to a reallocation of the access to natural re sources, the reshaping of social realities, and the renegotiation of power relations. In both contexts, we demonstrate, food security is reshaped by similar mechanisms of geopolitical interests and strategic alliances be tween certain actors. Thirdly, drawing on a critical concept of “place” we investigate how these tensions between flows and fixities are embod ied in specific places, thereby unfolding the current renegotiation of power-geometries around food security and revealing underlying mechanisms of redistribution and appropriation of natural resources across borders. Finally, we conclude our observations by coming back to the interfaces between area studies and geographical approaches. While a problem-oriented empirical analysis can enrich the theoretical debate on space, we argue that once area studies are released from their “territo rial trap” a critical area awareness will become prevalent, which is of far-reaching importance for geography and globalization studies if they seek to pay attention to the difference of place.

Area Studies and Geography: Criticism and Commonalities Spatial thinking has experienced much popularity in recent decades, not only in geography but also in the social sciences in general. While space had been neglected for a long time, globalization has moved “space” as a category to describe and analyse global phenomena to the forefront of research. From Giddens’ famous “time-space distanciation” as crucial characteristic of modernity1 to Harvey’s observation of “time-space i

A. Giddens, The Consequences o f Modernity, Cambridge 1990.

218

Sarah Ruth Sippel/Birgit Kemmcrling

compression”2 to the league of critical geographers advocating that “space matters”3, space appears as one of the most conceptually inspir ing, theoretically contested, and appealing categories of the “era of globalization”. Geographical thinking in global times thus seems to be a timely matter, as is, we would add, in many respects an area perspective. In times where the world is far from moving towards a “homogenized global village”, area-related knowledge is of fundamental importance since difference of place still matters. Hence, critical spatial thinking and area-related awareness should be linked if we seek to achieve a compre hensive understanding of global phenomena. The claim to combine area studies and geographical perspectives, however, raises questions with regard to the essential critique and fundamental shifts both area studies and cultural geography have gone through. These shifts can be broadly characterized as shifts from positivist to rather constructivist paradigms, especially against the background of post-colonial critique going back to the 1960s and the so-called “cultural turns”. Area studies have been criticised for their construction of “areas” as “areas of the other” deeply rooted in Western imperialism and scientific hegemony, entangled with geopolitical interests. Area studies have been revealed as imperial pro jects of classification, ordering, and power with regard to their geopo litical functions and strategic framing.4 This debate has arisen in the 1990s in an US-American context and led to a critical self-reflection of area specialists and the (re)production of area-related knowledge within the social sciences.5 A further social geographical line of critique holds that area studies should be more attentive with regard to the project of spatializing the world itself and claims an increasing awareness of how categories of thinking order the world.6 In this direction, metageographical critique reveals areas and other spatial subdivisions and classifications of the world often taken for granted as sets of spatial

3 4 5

6

D. Harvey, The Condition o f Postmodemity. An Enquiry into the Origins o f Cultural Change, Cambridge/Mass. 1990. D. Massey/J. Allen/P. Sarre (eds.), Human Geography Today, Cambridge 1999. J. Sidaway, Geography, Globalization, and the Problematic o f Area Studies, in: Annals o f the Association o f American Geographers, 101 (2011), pp. 1-19. A. Mirsepassi/A. Basu/F.S. Weaver, Localizing Knowledge in a Globalizing World: Recasting the Area Studies Debate, N ew York 2003; D.L. Szanton (ed.), The Politics o f Knowledge: Area Studies and the Disciplines, Berkeley, Los An geles, London 2004; T. Wesley-Smith/J.D. Goss (eds.), Remaking Area Studies: Teaching and Learning Across Asia and the Pacific, Manoa 2010. Wesley-Smith/Goss, Remaking Area Studies (fit 5).


219

structures through which we order our knowledge of the world.7 The world as being divided into or consisting of “areas” and the imagination of these areas as “fixed container spaces” of permanent associations between territory, society, and culture is criticised as ‘■‘trait geography” that should be replaced by “process geographies”.8 With Smith, these “process geog raphies”9 can be interpreted as tensions between fixity and fluidity. He places emphasis on processes that fix places, territories, and borders in space during specific periods, while simultaneously highlighting that fixed entities are being dissolved by both new fixities and fluidities. Similarly, geography has undergone a critical shift in terms of its understanding and conceptualization of regions and, more generally, of space and place; much of the aforementioned critique on area studies stems from this changing paradigm in geographical thinking. Since around the 1980s, the shift from the “territorial trap”10 of considering and thereby often ignoring - space as being given to a conceptualization of space as socially constructed and produced has promoted a critical reevaluation of spatiality in social thought, particularly highlighting its role in the construction and transformation of social life and its power laden nature.11 In the anglophone context this turn was mainly driven since the 1970s by a group of “critical geographers”. Likewise, also in German development geography there has been a shift since the 1980s from a regional focus {Raumwissenschaft) to a social science perspective (,Sozialwissenschaft).1213More recently, Neue Kulturgeographie has fos tered debates in German geography.1" In relation to “area studies”, the 7 8

M.W. Lewis/K.E Wigen, The Myth o f Continents: A Critique o f Metageogra phy, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1997. A. Appadurai, Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination, in:

Public Culture, 12 (2000) 1, pp. 1-19. 9

10

11 12

13

N. Smith, Remapping Area Knowledge: Beyond Global/Local, in: T. W esleySmith/J.D. Goss (eds.). Remaking Area Studies: Teaching and Learning Across Asia and the Pacific, Honolulu 2010, pp. 24—40. J. Agnew, The Territorial Trap: The Geographical Assumptions o f International Relations Theory, in: Review o f International Political Economy, 1 (1994) 1, pp. 53-80. B. Warf/S. Arias (eds.), The Spatial Turn. Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Lon don, N ew York 2009. J. Gertei, Geschichte, Struktur und fachwissenschaftliche Leitlinien der Ent wicklungstheorien, in: D. Böhn/E. Rothfuß (eds.), Handbuch des Geographie unterrichts, Köln 2007, pp. 52-72. H. Gebhardt/P. Reuber/G. Wolkersdorfer, Kulturgeographie. Aktuelle Ansätze und Entwicklungen, Heidelberg, Berlin 2003; C. Beradt/R. Pütz (eds.), Kulturel

le Geographien: Zur Beschäftigung mit Raum und Ort nach dem Cultural Turn,

220


question of areas has always been a controversial one within the disci pline of “specialist knowledge about places and regions”.14 Geography as a so-called systematic but certainly not spatially neutral discipline has been criticised for marginalizing region- or area-related knowledge and relegating “regional geography” to the fringe of the discipline, while theorization and formulation of allegedly “universalistic categories” was based on insights often exclusively derived from Western research con texts.15 The marginalization of regional studies within geography has been grounded in two trends: Systematic or theoretical geography has dominated debates since the 1960s and devalued apparently less theo retical regional studies; simultaneously, the emergence of development studies started to dominate the field of regional studies so that geogra phers who worked on and in “places outside of the west” became caught up in “developmentalism” 16 Drawing on post-colonial critique, Robin son argues for a cosmopolitan theoretical project within geography and seeks to replace regional and area studies at the centre of geography if the discipline does not want to cut itself off from the urgent social issues of the century. Against the backdrop of this brief overview of overlapping debates within area studies and cultural geography, a main question arises: What would a problem-oriented research focus that seeks to combine both a , critical area perspective - which pays attention to the constructed char acter of areas, places, and its historical embeddedness and geopolitical

Bielefeld 2007; J. Döring/T. Thielmann (eds.), Spatial Turn. Das Raumpara digma in den Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften, Bielefeld 2009; G. Glasze/A. Mattissek (eds.), Handbuch Diskurs und Raum. Theorien und Methoden für die Humangeographie sowie die sozial- und kulturwissenschaftliche Raumfor schung, Bielefeld 2009. 14 15

!6

Sidaway, Geography, Globalization, and the Problematic o f Area Studies (fh 4), P-2. Ibid.; Y.D. Wei, Commentary, in: Environment and Planning A, 38 (2006), pp. 1395-1400; D. Liverman, Who Governs, at What Scale and at What Price? Ge ography, Environmental Governance, and the Commodification o f Nature, in: Annals o f the Association o f American Geographers, 94 (2004) 4, pp. 734—738; J.K. Gibson-Graham, Area studies after poststructuralism, in: Environment and Planning A, 36 (2004) 3, pp. 405^419; H. Clout, Place description, regional ge ography and area studies: the chorographic inheritance, in: R. Johnston/M. Wil liams (eds.), A Century o f British Geography, Oxford 2003, pp. 247-273; J. Robinson, Postcolonialising geography: Tactics and pitfalls, in: Singapore Jour nal o f Tropical Geography, 24 (2003) 3, pp. 273—289. Robinson, Postcolonialising geography (lh 15).


221

interests - and a critical spatial analysis drawing on debates from critical geography entail?

Spatial Concepts in Food Security Discourses The so-called “global food crisis” in 2007/08 - brought about by the conjunction of new food and energy policies, speculation in commodity markets, and agricultural losses that resulted in sudden, steep rises of commodity prices that were directly passed on to consumers and caused worldwide food riots17 - has reshaped perspectives and discourses on global food security,18 highlighting its renewed relevance and complex ity. While food security had been one of the key issues of national and international development discourses for decades, the reorientation of energy politics as well as related sudden and continuing food price spikes in combination with the shift from traditional assets (such as real estate, stocks, etc.) to new investment assets (such as agricultural land properties) have drawn new attention to an old issue.19 On a national level, both Egypt and Qatar have recently been prominently associated with food (in)security discourses: Food insecurity in Egypt has long been an important issue in the country, but became particularly promi nent during the food crisis in 2007/08 when severe bread riots broke out.20 The government tried to seek political stability by increasing food subsidies and banning rice exports but without tackling structural prob lems. Increasing protests against the regime occurred and finally con tributed to political upheavals in January 2011. As one of the Arab Gulf

17

R. Patel/P. McMichael, A Political Economy o f the Food Riot, in: Review, A

Journal o f the Fernand Braudel Center, 12 (2009) 1, pp. 9-35. 18

19 20

Food security as a concept refers to various meanings that converge on there being sufficient food available and accessible to any given population at any time. Cf. Patel/McMichael, A Political Economy o f the Food Riot (fh 17), p. 10. Food security has been a major topic in international development policies for decades. Beyond its conceptualization and application within the development policy context, food security has also been an important subject in social sci ences, particularly against the backdrop o f debates on livelihood security, vul nerability, and risk analysis. Cf. H.G. Bohle/M. Watts, Climate change and so cial vulnerability. Toward a sociology and geography o f food insecurity, in: Global Environmental Change, 4 (1994) 1, pp. 37-48. P. McMichael, A food regime analysis o f the ‘world food crisis’, in: Agriculture and Human Values, 26 (2009), pp. 281-295. R. Bush, Food Riots: Poverty, Power and Protest, in: Journal o f Agrarian Change, 10 (2010) l,p p . 119-129.

222


states, Qatar was particularly present in the originally nongovernmental organization- (NGO) and media-driven “land grabbing” debate. In the report by the NGO GRAIN, which initiated the debate in 2008, Qatar, amongst others, is coined as “food security seeker” and “food security land grabber”.21 Despite these different conditions, prevalent discourses by interna tional organizations have identified reasons and provided solutions for dealing with food insecurity for both countries under one headline of “challenges of food security in the MENA region”: Food insecurity is usually represented in terms of absolute numbers based on macrostatistical data, referring to indicators such as population growth and poverty rates, scarce resources of arable land and water, and dependency on food imports.22 According to the general argument, population growth rates have led to an increasing demand for food that cannot be met by domestic food production due to scarce resources. Consequently, the already import-dependent countries of the MENA region increas ingly rely on food imports, rendering them vulnerable to price distor tions and market volatility. In order to promote social equity, most of the governments have implemented direct subsidies for staple foods, which are regarded as cost intensive and inefficient. Oil-rich countries are considered to be highly dependent on food imports but are due to oil exports fiscally sound; however, if oil prices are low and food prices increase, increasing food insecurity might also be faced. To cope with food insecurity, usually strategies such as the following are recom mended: first, a more efficient safety net based on cash transfers or near21

22

Global Agricultural Information Network (GRAIN), “Seized! The 2008 Land Grab fo r Food and Financial Security ”, October 2008, see: http://www. grain.org/article/entries/93-seized-the-2008-landgrab-for-food-and-financialsecurity, p. 3, (accessed on 27.11.2012). H. Lofgren/A. Richards, Food security, poverty, and economic policy in the Middle East and North Africa, in: Food, Agriculture, and Economic Policy in

the Middle East and North Africa, Research in Middle East Economics, 5 (2003), pp. 1-31; United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Develop ment Challenge fo r the Arab Region: Food Security and Agriculture, Vol. 2, N ew York, Cairo 2009; J.A. Lampietti, et al., A strategic framework for improv ing food security in Arab countries, in: Food Security, 3 (2011) 1, pp. 7-22; World Bank (ed.), Improving Food Security in Arab Countries, Washington DC 2009; C. Breisinger/O. Ecker/P. Al-Riffai, Economics o f the Arab Awakening: From Revolution to Transformation and Food Security. International Food Pol icy Research Institute Policy Brief 18, May 2011, see: http://www.ifpri. org/publication/economics-arab-awakening, (accessed on 25.3.2013).

Power Geometries of Food Security

223

cash assistance instead of direct food subsidies; second, an increasing domestic food production and agricultural productivity in order to re duce food import dependency; as well as third, managing exposure to price volatility by enhancing the cooperation with multinational enter prises. In these discourses, food (insecurity is hence presented as a coherent “problem-solution complex” relying on a “trait geography” of the MENA region that is constructed as food-insecure. This “aspatial” presentation provokes the association of “food insecurity” as the domi nant perspective and homogenized “image” of this part of the world, as well as not only ignoring crucial differences between countries, places, and actors, but rather concealing inequalities and power relations while inviting for universally applicable, often simplistic solutions. Without claiming that these indicators do not represent a legitimate part of the picture, the question of food security requires a more differentiated per spective. Already the comparison of macro-level indicators on the national level - data referring to Egypt and Qatar as “nation-state containers” shows that the issue of food (in)security presents itself quite differently in the two contexts. With a population of more than 84 million people, Egypt is the most populous country in the region,2324*while there are only 1.7 million people living in Qatar.2* Concerning the latter, around 225,000 of them are Qatar citizens, while the majority of residents are migrant workers, mostly from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Philip pines.23 Qatar is one of the fastest growing economies worldwide, and with a GDP at purchasing power parity per capita of more than US$90,000 it is the richest country in the world.26 Egypt’s GDP at pur chasing power parity per capita accounts for around US$6,300.27*The economies of both countries largely focus on oil and natural gas exports, 23 24 2;> 26

27

Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), see: http:// www.capmas.gov.eg/pages_ar.aspx?pageid=1475 (accessed on 10.06.2013). Qatar National Food Security Programme (QNFSP), see: http://www.qnfsp. gov.qa/ (accessed on 7.10.2012). Human Rights Watch, Qatar. Country summary, January 2012, see: www.hrw. org/sites/default/files/related_material/qatar_2012.pdf (accessed on 27.12.2012). C. Breisinger/O. Ecker/P. Al-Riffai, Economics o f the Arab Awakening: From Revolution to Transformation and Food Security, International Food Policy Re search Institute Policy Brief 18, May 2011, see: http://www.ifpri.org/publication/economics-arab-awakening, p. 1 (accessed on 25.3.2013). World Bank, see: http://data.worldbank.org/country/egypt-arab-republic (ac cessed on 8.10.2012).

224

Sarah Ruth Sippel/Birgit K.emmerling

while additional incomes in Egypt stem from tourism, remittance in flows, and the Suez Canal. Egypt faces a chronic trade deficit and debt crisis with a total external debt stock of more than US$35 billion, exac erbating its dependency on foreign loans and grants.28 Without doubt, natural resources are limited in both contexts: Egypt’s water resources depend almost completely on the Nile, from which it receives an annual share of 55.5 billion m3. Of all water resources, 86% are used for agri culture.'9 Similarly, cultivated land is limited to the Nile Valley and Delta together with the areas along the coasts and within the oases: only 3.5% of the country’s area, nearly 1 billion km2, can be used for agricul ture. Although the agricultural sector contributes 13% to the national GDP, it comprises more than 30% of the Egyptian labour force.30 Qatar’s land surface in turn is 11,590 km2 and only 1% of the land sur face qualifies as arable land.31 In Qatar, food importation amounts to nearly 90%, exposing it to high import prices and price volatility for imported commodities.32 For Egypt, the country imports half of its de mand for staple food. In Qatar, this equals 140,000 tons of wheat im ports, while Egypt is the largest wheat importer worldwide with 10.5 million tons of wheat imports.33 While these numbers highlight rather differences than commonal ities, the debate, however, lacks further differentiation between food insecure groups and groups otherwise exposed to nutritional issues, which is linked to the analysis of distribution of power, access, and enti tlements to resources within the context of decades of neoliberal politics. Patel and McMichael analyse the series of food riots in 2007 and 2008 as an outcome of the politics embodied in the Bretton Woods Institu tions’ economic doctrine: These politics, they argue, have dismantled public capacity and exacerbated food dependency through the liberaliza-

29

FAO Global Information System on Water and Agriculture (AQUASTAT),

Egypt, 2009, see: http:/7'ww w.fao.org/nr/watcr/aquastat/coimtries_regions/egypt/ 30 31 32 33

mdex.stm (accessed on 19.11.2012). United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Egypt Human Development Report 2010. Cairo 2010. World Bank, see: httpV/data.worldbank. org/indicator/AG.LND.ARBL.ZS/ countries (accessed on 27.11.2012). Qatar National Food Security Programme (QNFSP), The Economics o f food imports in Qatar. Economic Brief, (2012) 1. Food and Agriculture Organization o f the United Nations (FAOSTAT), Trade: Crops and Livestock Products, 2010, see: http://faostat.fao.org/site/535/Desktop Default.aspx?PageID-535#ancor (accessed on 19.11.2012).


225

tion of trade in foodstuffs, while these same economic policies were justified in the name of increasing “food security”.34 Similarly, Mitchell reveals in his analysis of food insecurity in Egypt the power mechanisms behind agricultural production and access to natural resources.35 Re source scarcity is rather a political problem of access, distribution, and entitlements than one of natural scarcity. By hiding or at least not tack ling these problems, solutions focus on technical and managerial ap proaches, often leaving out group-differentiated data. In this sense, the Egyptian “open-door policy” (infitah policy) instituted in the 1970s, together with the following increasing integration into the world econ omy supported by financial assistance of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, offered new possibilities to access the Egyp tian market. The US modified its economic strategy by exporting subsi dized grain while the government of Egypt adjusted agricultural produc tion in order to produce more livestock and dairy products for its rising middle class, as well as increasing need of fodder for domestic con sumption. In turn, basic foodstuffs were imported and subsidized.36 As a consequence, up until today, the rising number of people in Egypt living below the poverty line has become increasingly vulnerable to global oscillations of staple food prices, pushing them further into food insecu rity. Particularly women, children, and elderly people of resource-poor households are affected by undernourishment and chronic diseases.37 Similarly, the internal differentiation of food insecurity for Qatar shows that changing dietary patterns toward overconsumption and energydense foods have resulted in increasing degrees of overweight, obesity, and further dietary-related diseases for some parts of the population.38 3-1 35

Patel/McMichael, A Political Economy o f the Food Riot (fn 17). T. Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity, Los Angeles

36

Y. Sadowski, Political vegetables? Businessmen and bureaucrats in the devel opment o f Egyptian agriculture, Washington DC 1991; Mitchell, Rule o f Ex perts (fh 35). J. Gertei, Globalisierte Nahrungskrisen. Bruchzone Kairo, Bielefeld 2010. Unhealthy consumption patterns leading to overweight, obesity and dietary related diseases such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, or cardiovascular and coronary heart diseases among o f G ulf State citizens have been increasingly documented and identified as health risks in the last years. Cf. A. Spiess, Food Security in the GCC Economics, in: M.A. Ramady (ed.), The GCC Economies: Stepping Up To Future Challenges, N ew York 2012, pp. 85-98; S.W. Ng/S. Zaghloul/H.I. Ali, et al., The prevalence and trends o f overweight, obesity and nutrition-related non-communicable diseases in the Arabian G ulf States, in:

2002 .

37 38

226


Overweight and obesity are among the highest worldwide and particu larly prevalent for women, but also affect children and adolescents.39 It is mainly the group of foreign migrant workers that is identified as food insecure40 while a third group of existing but largely undocumented groups of lower income or even poor Gulf citizens must be considered as potentially food insecure."1

Between Flows and Fixities: Investments in Land and Water The particularities of layers of food (in)security that we have outlined so far have resulted in quite different political strategies of dealing with food (in)security in which various representations and constructions of food security are employed. These are particularly apparent in recent investments in land and water resources that have been undertaken un der the label of “improving and guaranteeing food security”. In order to investigate these investments we refer to the notion of flows. In the attempt to rethink space relationally, attention has been increasingly placed on the interconnectivity of a globalized world that is imagined as a world based on flows of things, goods, people, energy, capital, knowl edge, or ideas. The conceptualization of a “space of flows” prominently coined by Castells (1996) has provoked much debate about the de/reterritorializing and placeless/place-bound character of flows.42 The shift towards flows rather than fixed spaces is, however, potentially one sided, since a globalizing world is not simply characterized by a one dimensional weakening of borders but rather by a far more complicated restructuring of scales, places, and borders.43 In accordance with Smith,

39 40 41 42

43

Obesity Reviews, 12 (2011), pp. 1-13; A.O. Musaiger/H.R. Takruri/A.S. Hassanand Abu-Tarboush, Food-Based Dietary Guidelines for the Arab G ulf Coun tries, in: Journal o f Nutrition and Metabolism, (2012). Ng/Zaghloul/Ali, et al., The prevalence and trends o f overweight (fh 38). Spiess, Food Security in the GCC Economics (fh 38). E. Woertz/S. Pradhan/N. Biberovic/C. Koch, Food inflation in the GCC Coun tries, Gulf Research Center Report 2008, pp. 16 sq. M. Castells, The information age: Economy, society and culture volume 1: The rise o f the network society, Oxford/U.K. 1996; idem, Grassrooting the space o f flows, in: Urban Geography, 20 (1999) 4, pp. 294-302; Agnew, The Territorial Trap (fit 10); A. Appadurai, Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions o f Global ization, Minneapolis 1996; E. Sheppard, The Spaces and Times o f Globaliza tion: Place, Scale, Networks and Positionality, in: Economic Geography, 78 (2002) 3, pp. 307-330. Smith, Remapping Area Knowledge (fh 9), p. 29.


227

we seek to interpret investments in water and land in their double func tion of simultaneously breaking and making borders, dissolving and fixing places and territories, as well as selectively fragmenting and re constructing areas. USAID Development Aid in Egypt The food price increases since 2007/08 and their negative impact on livelihoods in Egypt has put food security as a primary objective on the political agenda. In 2009, the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Recla mation published its new Sustainable Agricultural Strategy Towards 2030 with the participation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural De velopment, and the World Bank. The mission is to modernize “agricul ture in Egypt for achieving food security and improving the standard of living of the rural inhabitants, through the efficient use of development resources and the utilization of the geopolitical advantages of Egypt on the one hand, and the environmental advantages of the different agricul tural regions on the other”.44 Concretely, this shall be implemented, first, by introducing new technologies and crop varieties for an efficient, water-saving irrigation system in order to invest the saved water into land reclamation projects; second, by promoting agricultural growth, particularly for high-yield crops and fodder, and improving livestock productivity and aquaculture; and third, by enhancing trade with neighbouring market economies and attracting foreign direct invest ments.43 This strategy hence represents a further commitment to a tech nical and managerial approach to modernize agriculture. Based on ex port-oriented agro-production and efficient water management, this is neither new nor has been proven to be effective in terms of reducing food dependency, alleviating poverty, or mitigating social inequality.*6 Yet, this policy has been encouraged and financially supported, driven by geopolitical and economic interests, through Official Development Assistance for decades.47 Particularly after the war in October 1973, 44

Ministry o f Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MALR), Sustainable Agricul tural Development Strategy towards 2030 , Cairo 2009, p. 18.

45

Ibid.

46

World Food Program (WFP), The Status o f Food Insecurity und Vulnerability in Egypt, 2009. Cairo 2011. Sadowski, Political vegetables? (fn 36); R. Bush, Land Reform and Counter Revolution, in: R. Bush (ed), Counter-Revolution in Egypt's Countryside: Land

47

228

Sarah Rutil Sippel/Birgit Kemmerling

when Egypt reoriented its foreign policy towards the US, a wide range of “Western” donors started to invest in the country. The agreement made between the US and the government of Egypt is the most promi nent example: since 1979, the US has transferred a significant amount of its foreign aid to Egypt for military and economic assistance, amounting to US$1.55 billion in 2011.*43*48 These financial flows primarily aim to influence national foreign policies to foster “political stability” in the region.49 Similarly, the focus of many donor states, for example, Ger many, on water and energy is based on an economic strategy to export know-how and technology, and build strategic economic partnerships.50 Although Egypt has been classified as a middle-income country, the Official Development Assistance, particularly from the US, and interna tional financial institutions (though also based in the US) like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are still present in the coun try, funding a broad range of development projects. In rural Egypt, fi nancial support is currently mainly directed to the “efficient” use of scarce water resources. For instance, the World Bank, together with the German Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau and the Kingdom of the Nether lands, is financing an Integrated Irrigation Improvement and Manage ment Project in the northern Nile Delta with a loan of US$120 million, mainly focussing on the rehabilitation of irrigation techniques and estab lishment of Water User Associations.51 Similarly, though with a smaller budget, the USAID has provided a grant for an Integrated Resources Management Project in the eastern Nile Delta, establishing Integrated

43

49 50

and Farmers in the Era o f Economic Reform, London 2002, pp. 3-31; Mitchell, Rule o f Experts (fh 35). After the Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt, the US started its military and economic assistance for both countries. The support for Israel and Egypt counts for two thirds o f U S Foreign Aid, to a large extend going into military support. In 2011, the military assistance for Egypt was USS 1.3 billion while the US had budgeted US$ 250 million for economic assistance. J.M. Sharp, Egypt: Back ground and U.S. Relations. Congressional Research Service, see: www.fas.org/ sgp/crs/mideast/RL33003.pdf, (accessed on 17.11.2012). J. Brownlee, Democracy Prevention: The Politics o f the US~Egyptian Alliance, Cambridge/U.K. 2012. Bundesministerium fur wirtschaftliche Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit (ed.), Grundlage, Schwerpunkte und Perspektiven der deutschen Entwicklungspolitik mit der Region Nahost/Nordafrika. BMZ Konzepte 156, Berlin 2008, see: http://

51

www.bmz.de/de/publikationen/reihen/strategiepapiere/ (accessed 25.3.2013). World Bank, Project Approval Document, Report Number 31571-EG, Washing ton DC 2005.


229

Water Management Districts and Water User Associations, and advocat ing high-yield crop production.32 Due to its permanent debt crisis, Egypt depends on these loans and grants through Official Development Assis tance. However, Egyptian politicians and businessmen also have the power to control, resist, and benefit from activities and investment flows as they are aware of the geopolitical and economic interests by Europe and North America in Egypt.33 These power structures are not only rep resented in the negotiation of investment flows for development projects but also expressed in personal interlinkages. For instance, some consul tancies and regional officers of the USAID Integrated Water Resources Management are retired officers from the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (expert interview 24.6.2012). For both the government of Egypt and the USAID as well as for other development organizations, the urgency of food security and water scarcity legitimizes investments in resources and the modernization of the agricultural sector in general, thereby fulfilling mutual interests. Within the context of the Egyptian revolution, this “hidden alliance” that has lasted for decades has re ceived criticism, particularly by the Egyptian people but equally by the European and North American public.52534 The recent political upheavals denounced the opportunism that has resulted from this focus on political stability and economic interests. For decades, the governments of donor countries accepted or actively supported the power structures of an au thoritarian regime and, equally, the corruption through which politicians.

52

United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Integrated

Water Resource Management II: Final Project Completion Report (January 2009-September 2012). Report No. 39, Washington DC 2012. 53

Sadowski, Political vegetables? (fn 36); Mitchell, Rule o f Experts (fh 35); R. Bush, Coalitions for Dispossession and Networks o f Resistance? Land, Politics and Agrarian Reform in Egypt, in: British Journal fo r Middle Eastern Studies, 3 8 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 3 ,p p .391^405. See debate in diverse newspapers and magazines, e.g. P. Reynolds, “Managing Egypt’s Revolution”, in: BBC News, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worldmiddle-east-12323751 (accessed on 18.3.2013); B. von Bidder/C. Höges, “Shoppen und Schießen”, in: Spiegel Online, see: http://www.spiegel.de/ spiegel/print/d77745588.html (accessed on 18.3.2013); S. Khorshid, “The Betrayal o f Egypt’s Revolution”, in: International Herald Tribune, see: http://www.nytimes. com /2012/06/19/opinion/the-betrayal-of-egypts-revolution. html?_r=0 (accessed on 18.03.2013); S. Richter, “The US in Egypt: A fully hedged position”, in: Aljazeera, see: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/ 2012/07/2012 72212564336591 l.html (accessed on 18.3.2013).

230


bureaucrats, and businessmen could accumulate capital, while increasing parts of the population remained or even drifted into poverty. Qatar's Investments in Australia The food price hikes in 2007/08, increasing food inflation, and export bans and restrictions by major exporting countries led to distrust in food markets in the countries of the Arab Gulf. Coupled with largely failed agricultural policies in the past, the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council55 fundamentally reconsidered their food security strategies con cerning both domestic agriculture as well as the exterritoritalization of food production through investment in land properties abroad.56 The intentions of these investments in land seem to be clear: “Food-insecure Gulf countries perceive these investments as a long-term strategy to feed their own populations at a competitive price and with far greater secu rity”.57 As such, neither appropriations of land nor the strategy to exter nalize food production are new: plans to invest in agricultural produc tion abroad already existed before when in the aftermath of the oil crisis of 1973 significant agricultural investments were directed to Sudan in order to turn Sudan into a “bread basket of the Gulf’. In 2008, Qatar also launched a new food security policy.58 This policy is based on two 55

56

57

58

The member states o f the Cooperation Council for the Arab States o f the Gulf, a political and economic alliance formed in 1981, are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, see: http://www.gcc-sg.org (accessed on 18.3.2013). J. Sfakianakis/E. Woertz, Foreign Investment Strategies o f GCC Countries. Paper presented at the Eight Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meet ing, Florence & Montecatini Terme, 21.-25.3.2007, organized by the Mediterra nean Programme o f the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute; Woertz/Pradhan/Biberovic/Koch, Food inflation in the GCC Countries (fh 41); E. Woertz/S.Pradhan/N. Biberovic/C. Jingzhong, Potential for GCC Agro-Investments in Africa and Central Asia, G ulf Research Center Report 2008; E. Woertz, Gulf Food Security and Agricultural Coopera tion with Africa, G ulf Research Center Background Papers 2010; E. Woertz, Arab Food, Water, and the Big Landgrab that Wasn’t, in: Brown Journal o f World Affairs, 18 (2011) 1, pp. 119-132. R. Zurayk/J. Chaaban/A. Sabra, Ensuring that potential G ulf farmland invest ments in developing countries are pro-poor and sustainable, in: Food Security, 3 (2011) 1, pp. 129-137 (herep. 130). For a more comprehensive analysis and discussion o f Qatar’s investment in Australia and the Australian debate on foreign landownership only briefly de lineated in this paper see S.R. Sippel, Arab-Australian Land Deals: Between Food Security, Commercial Business, and Public Discourse, in: Land Deal Poli tics Initiative Working Papers Series, Working Paper 27, Rotterdam 2013.

Power Geometries of Food Security

231

pillars: first, the Qatar National Food Security Programme, which pur sues the goal “to reduce Qatar’s reliance on food imports through the realization of the principle of self-sufficiency”59, and, second, the Hassad Food Company, which is owned by the Qatar Investment Authority, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.60 Hassad Food was established in 2008 with a capital base of US$1 billion and pursues the goal to secure food supplies for Qatar through agricultural investments in food production abroad.61 While land deals have also been announced for Sudan, land purchases in Australia are by far Hassad Food’s largest investments in agricultural land to date.62 Land purchases in Australia have been real ized by Hassad Australia, Hassad Food’s subsidiary in Australia, which was established in November 2009 as Hassad Food’s first overseas investmen.63 Hassad Australia currently owns 250,000 hectares of land property in Australia, which represents more than twenty times the area of Qatar’s arable land surface. The company focusses on sheep, wool, and grain production in eleven farms that are geographically spread from Queensland over New South Wales and Victoria to Western Austra lia. With a production capacity of 97,000 sheep, within only three years Hassad Australia has entered the league of Australia’s top ten sheep flock list, currently occupying the seventh place.64 There are several reasons for the company’s decision to invest in Australian agriculture: Australia has an open agricultural sector with low

60

61

^

63 64

Quote o f HH the Emir o f the State o f Qatar, S.H. Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, FAO Headquarters, 16.11.2009, see: http://www.qnfsp.gov.qa (accessed on 18.3.2013). Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, established in 2005, has a volume o f US$ 115 billion which mainly stem from liquefied natural gas exports. It was founded to strengthen the country’s economy by diversifying into new asset classes and in vestments. The Qatar Investment Authority invests domestically and internation ally to curtail reliance on energy price volatility. Cf. http://www.swfmstitute.org/swfs/qatar-investment-authority/ (accessed on 6.10.2012). Qatar National Food Security Programme, see: http://www.qnfsp.gov.qa/ (ac cessed on 7.10.2012). As o f June 2012, if not otherwise stated, the following information relies on qualitative interviews conducted with representatives o f Hassad Australia in Australia in June 2012. These interviews were complemented by further conver sations with Australian actors who are doing business with the G ulf States or fa cilitating economic relations. Hassad Australia, see: http://www.hassad.com.au/Home.aspx (accessed on 7.10.2012). Australian Farm Journal, “Top 10 sheep flock moves demonstrate optimism surrounding wool and meat”, October 2011.

232


hurdles for purchasing land properties65, a sophisticated degree of agri cultural infrastructure, and available skilled labour. Since the mid 1980s, Australian governments have widely de-regularized the economy. As a result, agriculture relies on the model of “productivism”, which is deemed to increase efficiency and productivity, and is mainly character ized by specialization, intensification, and economies of scale. Further more, agriculture is largely unsubsidized and strongly export oriented.66 In line with this, Australia pursues an investment-promoting policy based on the argument that it is a large resource rich country with high demand for capital that foreign direct investment would deliver, thereby fostering economic growth, higher rates of employment, and living standards.6 In this context, the Gulf States are welcomed as most desir able business partners that “could easily go elsewhere if not attracted to invest in Australia”.68 These factors crucially distinguish Australia from other countries targeted for agricultural investments:69 The open, stable political framework guarantees a high degree of reliability for invest ments, while these in turn fulfil the interests of certain Australian politi cal groups and actors.70 In addition, institutional as well as personal interlinkages played a crucial role in the process of identifying Australia as an investment region and establishing Hassad Australia. From its very beginning, the Qatar National Food Security Programme was accompa65 66

67

68 69

70

Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB), 2012, see: http://www.firb.gov. au/content/default.asp (accessed on 7.10.2012). G Lawrence/C. Richards/K. Lyons, Food security in Australia in an era o f neoliberalism, productivism and climate change, in: Journal o f Rural Studies, 29 (2012), see: pp. 1-10. G. Golding, Australian regulation o f foreign direct investment by sovereign wealth funds and State-owned enterprises: Are our rules right? (2010) 38 ABLR 215, see: http://sites.thomsonreuters.com.au/joiimals/2010/09/16/australian-regulation-of-foreign-direct-investment-by-sovereign-wealth-funds-andstate-owned-enterprises-are-our-rules-right/ (accessed on 25.3.2013). Statement according to Department grains industry development director Peter Metcalfe, quoted by Thomson and Tarala in The West, 16.12.2008. For instance in comparison to the impediments and challenges Shepherd ana lyzed for G ulf investments in Cambodia. Cf. B. Shepherd, GCC States’ Land Investments Abroad. The Case o f Cambodia. Center for International and Re gional Studies, Georgetown University School o f Foreign Service, Qatar 2012. This group includes actors such as several (former) Australian ministers and politicians as well as institutions and organizations, to name but a few, such as the Foreign Investment Review Board, the National Farmers Federation, the Pastoralists and Graziers Association, Australian Grain Growers Association, the Australia Gulf Council, Australian Bankers BKK, RM Wilhams Agriculture Holdings, Coffey International.


233

nied by an Australian development consultancy, which advised the Qa tari government regarding their food security strategy. When the Qatari government set up Hassad Food as the company to be responsible, for implementing the food security policy on the international scale, this consultancy advised upon Hassad Food’s business plan and facilitated its establishment as well as land purchases in Australia. The strategic alliance between Qatar’s food security strategy and Australian’s foreign investment interest is last but not least mirrored in personal entangle ments at the company level. On the one hand, Hassad Australia is pri marily run by Australians, including several Australians on the board, such as the former dean of agriculture of the University of Melbourne. On the other hand, Australians hold important positions in Qatar, for instance the position of the deputy head of investments and the head of grain business. Access to and control over the main resources for food production land and water - is currently being renegotiated. Food security, as our examples demonstrate, as a discursively constructed concept plays a crucial role in this process and is used to legitimize investments in land properties by certain actors and promote water resource policies that fulfil specific interests. The power to direct or attract financial flows that are as such not territorially bound is crucial. While the financial flows in our examples are of essentially different characters - development assis tance on the one hand, and a sovereign wealth fund on the other mechanisms of directing and attracting flows are quite similar. Financial flows are strategically channelled by actors - who, in our cases, are ironically mainly state actors - which reflect their geopolitical and stra tegic interests, thus leading to new power-geometries as well as to the perpetuation of existing fixities on various scales. Via its sovereign wealth fund, Qatar invests income from oil and gas exports in food pro duction and acquires properties outside its national territory, thereby leading to an exterritorialization of access to resources in Australia. The Egyptian government establishes its food security and agricultural strategies in accordance with the international donor community in order to receive financial aid; in turn, Official Development Assistance of the US is in line with their specific geopolitical and economic interests. Investment flows thus do undermine fixed spaces such as nation states, areas, and territorial b/orders and span new networks of powergeometries while, at the same time, existing power-geometries are rein forced - this is what we refer to as tension between flows and fixities.

234

Sarah Ruth Sippel/Birgit Kemraerling

While in the case of Qatar-Australia land deals dominating powergeometries of world food production and foreign investments are re shaped, USAID development assistance in Egypt enforces prevailing geopolitical hegemonies. Both dynamics are, however, contested. This becomes particularly apparent when considering their embodiment and negotiation “in place” as we will demonstrate in our third and last sec tion.

Geographies of Place The notion and conceptualization of “place” is pivotal in geographical thinking and has long been one of its key elements. Nevertheless, the “feeling of being in place” still proves to be remarkably elusive to de scribe.71 Massey, in particular, has dedicated much of her writing to revealing the implicit connotations and powerful implications of imagi nations of place and its alternative conceptualization.7273Place, she dem onstrates, is in our imagination overwhelmingly posited as “more mean ingful” than space; it is identified with notions such as “real”, “grounded”, “everyday”, “lived”, as well as associations of “earthiness”, “authenticity”, while constituting and creating personal and cultural identity. “Local place”, opposed to the more abstract “global space”, often appears as the “victim” of the global. However, if we seek to take the relational construction of space and identity seriously, place must be considered as a site of often conflictual negotiation, possessing not only agency but also acting as potential epicentres of power. We need to abandon our “Russian doll geography” where space and scale are or dered from the nearest and most concrete - “home” - to the farthest and most abstract - “global”. Instead she advocates for a conceptualization of “places” as “criss-crossings in the wider power-geometries which constitute both themselves and ‘the global’”.'3 Drawing on these con ceptualizations of “place” we will now focus on two exemplary contexts in Egypt and Australia that we interpret as criss-crossings in the wider power-geometries of food security. We zoom in on two places - West 71 72

73

D. Massey/N. Thrift, The passion o f place, in: R. Johnston/M. Williams (eds.), A Century o f British Geography, Oxford 2003, pp. 275-299 (here p. 276). D. Massey, Space, Place, and Gender, Minneapolis 1994; idem. Geographies o f Responsibility, in: Geografiska Annaler, 86 B (2004) 1, pp. 5-18; idem, For Space, London et al. 2005. Massey, Geographies o f Responsibility (fn 72), p. 11.


235

Bilbeis in Egypt and Warren Shire in Australia - to demonstrate how they simultaneously embody and negotiate the tensions created by in vestment flows, political practices, and public discourses of food secu rity. Considered as criss-crossings in time and space, both field studies make the negotiation and appropriation of natural resources visible and experienceable. “Put Water into a Place West Bilbeis In order to draw a complex picture of the political debate and the power geometries inherent in food security and water policies in Egypt, water has to be “put into a place”. For this purpose, we will focus on the irriga tion district of West Bilbeis in the southeast Nile Delta where the USAID funded an Integrated Water Resources Management project in cooperation with the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation be tween 2009 and 2012. Located in the centre of “development coopera tion” delineated above, West Bilbeis represents several layers of the flows and discourses that have emerged around food security and water scarcity in Egypt.74 As water shortages are considered as the outcome of poor water management and unsuitable crop patterns, activities of the USAID and the government of Egypt have focussed on the improvement of water management regimes and the shift from water-consuming crops such as rice to high-yield water-saving crops such as vegetables.75 Im posed on specific places, discourses, and practices of the Official Devel opment Assistance and the government of Egypt reveal the powergeometries between different stakeholders such as the government, de velopment institutions, and local water users. These power-geometries of food security and water scarcity in West Bilbeis become visible by looking at the connected political debates and the everyday practices of controversial rice production.76 '4

75

During several research stays between December 2010 and July 2012, inter views were conducted with diverse actors within the agricultural and water sec tor, representing researchers. Official Development Assistance, Government o f Egypt, NGOs, Water User Associations, and fanners in West Bilbeis and Marsa Matrouh. United States Agency for International Development (USAED), Integrated

Water Resource Management II: Introducing high value/low water consumption crops to East Delta farmers. Report No. 23, Washington DC 2011. 76

For a detailed analysis o f the activities that focus on the improvement o f water management regimes, see Ayeb, Habib, La crise de la societe rurale en Egypte: L aßn du Fellah?, Paris 2010.

236


The cultivation of rice, mainly produced in the Nile Delta77, has been one of the most contested debates within the food security dis course in Egypt due to its large irrigation water requirements on the one hand and its importance as staple food and export crop on the other hand. In order to save water, the Ministry of Water Resources and Irriga tion aims to limit the annual rice production to a total area of around 500,000 hectares in the northern and some eastern parts of the Nile Delta.78 For farmers, however, the production of rice is very attractive as it is not labour intensive, yields per unit of land are high, and they can use it for domestic purposes or sell it on markets.79 Moreover, rice is a strategic crop that is not only contributing directly to food security as staple food but also is an important export crop. During the food crisis in 2008, when Egypt was affected by skyrocketing food prices, the Minis try of Industry and Foreign Trade passed an export ban on rice in order to keep domestic prices low and to rationalize rice consumption. Al though the ban has been extended until today, rice exports are allowed to a certain extent.80 Moreover, rice is still among the top five of Egyptian agricultural export products. Despite the export limitations, 261,178 tons

77

78

79

80

FAO Global Information System on Water and Agriculture (AQUASTAT), 2009, Egypt, see: http://wwvv.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/countries_regions/ egypt/index.stm (accessed on 19.11.2012). In these parts, rice is the most efficient alternative to make use o f polluted water and to leach salinated soils: “The reason is that maximum freshwater pressure required to stop sea water interference is available in these regions, especially that such regions are characterized by low-level contours, moderate temperature and a highly humid content that reduces water consumption, which is a technical procedure that protects the Delta against salinization”. T.H.S. Kotb/T. Watanabe/Y. Ogino/K.K. Tanji, Soil salinization in the Nile Delta and related policy issues in Egypt, in: Agricultural Water Management, 43 (2000) 2, pp. 239-261; Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN), Egypt Rice Update. June, Cairo 2010; A.Z. Othman, N.M. El-Agroudy, M.B. El Din Hassan, et. al., Cur rent Situation and Outlook for Egyptian Rice Economics, in: Australian Journal o f Basic and Applied Sciences, 5(2 0 1 1 ) 11, pp. 1934-1941 (here p. 1935). D. Wichelns, The role o f ‘virtual water’ in efforts to achieve food security and other national goals, with an example from Egypt, in: Agricultural Water Man agement, 49 (2001), pp. 131-151; Othman/El-Agroudy et. al.. Current Situation and Outlook for Egyptian Rice Economics (fh 78). Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN), Egypt Rice Update. June, Cairo 2010; Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) Egypt Rice Up date. August, Cairo 2011.


237

of rice were exported in 2010 with a value of more than US$120 mil lion.81 These power plays around rice production are reflected in everyday contexts of West Bilbeis. The government of Egypt and the USAID have actively promoted the cultivation of alternative crops that are considered to be water-saving - such as spices (for example, basil) and vegetables (such as tomatoes, cowpeas, and zucchini) - in order to limit rice pro duction.82*These crops are meant to be sold on regional markets while earned profits are intended to help to purchase rice (expert interview 25.3.2012). By controlling rice production, the Ministry of Water Re sources and Irrigation has achieved in limiting its cultivation signifi cantly during the last years. However, farmers informed us: “We must grow rice [...] it’s our main dish. We would never stop growing rice” (focus group interview, 7.12.2011). This statement not only points to the vital importance of rice for a household’s food security but also to the underlying problems linked to the changes in crop policy. Accordingly, producing alternative crops instead of rice is not a viable option, at least not for small farmers and tenants. With an average size of landownership of 0.64 hectare and a considerable number of landless peasants80, the crucial problem for these farmers is access to land.84 Our interviewee

81

82

Food and Agriculture Organization o f the United Nations (FAOSTAT), Trade: Exports, Commodities by country, 2010, see: http://faostat.fao.org/site/342/defaultaspx, (accessed on 19.11.2012). United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Integrated

Water Resource Management II: Introducing high value/low water consumption crops to East Delta farmers , Report No. 23, Washington DC 2011. 82

84

This is the average size investigated by a USAID survey. Considering, the un equal distribution o f land it must be assumed that many land holdings are even smaller than 0.64 hectare. Cf. United States Agency for International Develop ment (USAID), Farmer Survey, Report No. 28, Washington DC 2011. Land distribution in Egypt is highly unequal 90 % o f farmers own less than 2 hectares (5 feddan) or are landless while the other 10 % o f farmers access al most 50 % o f all cultivated land in Egypt. The situation worsened after the full implementation o f law 96 in 1997, which reversed the tenancy law o f Nasser, prioritizing large landowners and weakening the rights of tenants. As a conse quence, tenants saw themselves confronted with multiplied rents and temporary contracts. This law has affected around one million o f farmer households. Many o f them were forced to leave the land, which had been their only livelihood se curity. Land conflicts are continuing until today. Only in 2010, approximately 300 farmers have been killed by police forces in Egypt’s countryside due to con flicts over land. Cf. Bush, Coalitions for Dispossession and Networks o f Resis tance? (fh 53), pp. 392-399.

238

Sarah Ruth Sippel/Birgit Kernraerling

from the Land Center of Human Rights, a nongovernmental organization in Egypt, formulated this as follows: “They can deal with the water issue - but their biggest dream is to own the land. [B]ut the government just [ ...] spotlights the water when the main problem is the land from the fanners’ perspective” (expert interview 8.7.2012).

Although farmers do face serious water shortages, it is not necessarily due to water scarcity; branch canals for irrigation are often blocked with garbage and, as a consequence, those fields particularly at the end of the canal system do not get enough irrigation water.85 While it is the respon sibility of the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation to clean up these canals, farmers often complain about delayed clearance. Besides the unequal access to land and water resources, most farmers can also not afford to pay the necessary labour for cultivating high-yield crops, while also often lacking access to seeds and fertilizers as well as to mar ket information, which is particularly problematic during a highly uncer tain political time with constantly changing supply and demand as well as oscillating prices (focus group interview, 7.12.2011). Hence, the de velopment strategy of saving water by prohibiting rice production and cultivating market-oriented products faces important shortcomings when it comes to implementation on the ground. High production costs and uncertain sale options of high-yield crops, on the one hand, and price increases for rice on the local markets, on the other hand, have been crucial factors for famers in returning to rice cultivation: after the political upheavals in early 2011, controls of rice production stopped, resulting immediately in an extension of rice cultivation. Although still prohibited by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, fanners could gain access seeds and fertilizers for rice. While the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation does not pro mote rice cultivation, it does not prevent it either: “We always know 85

The unequal access to land and water are interlinked through complex processes o f land tenure, water rights, policy interventions, and a variety o f other factors. The blockage o f canals is just one example o f the multiple facets o f unequal wa ter access that especially fanners at the end o f the canal face. For a detailed analysis o f water access in Egypt’s countryside, see: J. Barnes, Pumping possi bility: Agricultural expansion through desert reclamation in Egypt, in: Social Studies o f Science, 42 (2012) 4, pp. 517-538; idem. M ixing waters: The reuse o f agricultural drainage water in Egypt, in: Geoforum, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ j.geoforum .2012.11.019 (accessed on 4.6.2013).


239

what farmers are cultivating, even if they are cultivating rice; but what’s done is done, and we give advice. All of the agricultural offices act like this. It’s not my responsibility to report rice cultivation, it’s the responsi bility of the irrigation office” (expert interview, 10.6.2012). The recent political upheavals combined with the lack of cooperation between the two ministries gave farmers new scopes of action: “They [both ministries] d on’t cooperate; the question o f the rice ban is only one example. In the question o f rice the users are stronger” (expert inter view , 24.6.2012).

Hence, the debate around rice production in the context of food security and water scarcity is contested and constantly renegotiated. As one in formant emphasised: “there is a very important need to synchronize and harmonize the water pol icy rules with the agricultural policies and w ith the trade policies. [Y]ou cannot put a ban from the M inistry o f Water Resources and Irrigation on the use o f water for rice and find that the M inistry o f Agriculture is advocating and promoting the cultivation o f rice and the Ministry o f Trade is promoting trade and export on whatever com m odity can bring more m oney to the country” (expert interview, 11.12.2011).

Yet debates on water management and rice production mostly fail to reflect everyday practices of farmers as well as the challenges and needs they are facing. While rice, which is a crop that consumes a high amount of water, is considered to undermine sustainable agricultural production by the government and international development assistance, rice re mains the main dish and driver of food security, particularly for small farmers and the landless population. This failure becomes visible during periods of political transition as well as in institutional leaks, through which counter-hegemonic agendas can emerge. Negotiations o f “Australianness ” Contrary to the mutual interest assumed by the strategic alliance be tween the Qatar Investment Authority and certain Australian stake holders, foreign ownership of agricultural land properties has recently been controversially debated in political discourses, the media, and “everyday contexts”, which include “Australian space” and conflicting concepts of “place” around Australian land properties. Positions range between adhering to Australia as an open economic space unambigu-

240


ously welcoming investment flows and voices that denounce Australia’s natural resource policy as “selling out the farm”, which expresses con cerns about Australia’s own food security.86 Noticeably, stakeholders claiming stricter regulations for foreign landownership cut across tradi tional political right- or left-wing factions and include the coalition of rather centre-right conservative parties, the Liberal Party, as well as the Australian Greens. Apart from foreign land ownership, especially the issue of “producing food for another country’s security” has raised vivid debates pointing to the fact that sovereign wealth funds seek to repatriate food to investor nations. This line of argument even undermines the neoliberal doctrine of “open markets” as Lawrence et al. point out: “While the goal of increasing foreign direct investment is part of the WTO’s adherence to ‘comparative advantage’ and, more broadly, to global neoliberalism [...], products returned to investor nations do not enter the open market [...]”.87 As a key initiative on the political level, the Foreign Acquisitions Amendment (Agricultural Land) Bill 2010 was introduced into the Commonwealth Senate in 2010 and sought to change

86

87

See, e.g., J. Thomson/K. Tarala, “Minister backs Arab farm deals”, in: The West, 16.12.2008, see: http://farmlandgrab.org/2627 (accessed on 25.3.2013); S. Crittenden, “Does Australia risk losing control o f its food resources?”, in: ABC News, 25.07.2010, see: http://www.abc.net.au/news/specials/selling-the-farmpart-1/ (accessed on 11.12.2012); Ibid., “Does Australia need a food security plan?”, in: ABC News, 25.07.2010, see: http://www.abc.net.au/news/specials/selling-the-farm-part-2/ (accessed on 11.12.2012); P. Myers, “Australia should look to its own food security, before all the farm is sold”, in: The Age, 14.10.2010, see: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/australia-should-look-toits-food-security-before-all-the-farm-is-sold-20101013-16jyw.html (accessed on 11.12.2012); C. Houston/R. Millar, “Qatar land grab angers bush”, in: The Age, 19.6.2011, see: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/qatar-land-grab-angers-bush20110618-lg991.html (accessed on: 11.12.2012); A. Yates, “Stop selling our land overseas”, in: The Canberra Times, 20.8.2012, see: http://www.canberratimes. com.au/opinion/stop-selling-our-land-overseas-20120819-24g6n.html (accessed on 11.12.2012); J. Hansen, “Australia is the great foreign-owned land as more NSW farms being sold overseas”, in: The Sunday Telegraph, 26.2.2012, see: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-news/australia-is-the-great-foreign-owned-land-as-more-nsw-farms-being-sold-overseas/story-e6freuzi1226281573668 (accessed on 11.12.2012); T. Lee, “Absentee Landlords.”, in: ABC broadcast, 01.07.2012, see: http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/ 2 0 12/s3536454.htm (accessed on 28.11.2012). G. Lawrence/C. Richards/K. Lyons, Food security in Australia in an era o f neoliberalism, productivism and climate change, in: Journal o f Rural Studies, 29 (2012), pp. 1-10 (here p. 3).


241

the rules for foreign investment in agricultural land.88 While the bill did not pass89, political debate has continued with further statements and initiatives, both for and against stricter regulation, including another round of senate discussion. In June 2011, a Coalition Working Group was established in reaction to community and industry concerns90, while a month later the Senate’s Rural Affairs and Transport References Committee was mandated to inquire into the national interest test and tax arrangements. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences published the commissioned study on foreign investment and Australian agriculture in late 201191, and the Department of the Treasury released a policy statement regarding foreign investment

89

90

51

Nick Xenophon, independent senator for South Australia, initiated the amend ment together with the Tasmanian senator and leader o f the Greens Christine Milne. He argues: “[W]e have to acknowledge that our poor foreign investment requirements put our own agricultural industry at risk, particularly in the longer term. I should stress that foreign investment is by and large unambiguously a good thing for a small, open economy like Australia. [B]ut there must always be a focus on Australia’s own agricultural security and long-term food security”. Cf. N. Xenophon, Foreign Acquisitions Amendment (Agricultural Land) Bill 2010, Second Reading, Speech, 24.11.2010. “The committee reiterates that FDI [Foreign Direct Investment] is critical to the development o f Australia's industries and has significant benefits for the Austra lian community at large. Further, the committee believes that the current FIRB [Foreign Investment Review Board] arrangements are adequate to protect the national interest and ensure Australia’s food security. Australia remains a sig nificant net exporter o f food and is clearly self-sufficient in agricultural produc tion. The FIRB process has worked well on a case by case basis and should not be subject to a prescriptive national interest test. The committee believes that the bill’s national interest test and spatial threshold would be inconsistent with the existing FIRB framework and, potentially, Australia’s FTAs [Free Trade Agree ments] and OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] obligations”. Cf. Economics Legislation Committee (ELC), Foreign Acquisitions Amendment (Agricultural Land) Bill 2010. The Senate, June 2011, see: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate_Committees? url=economics_ctte/foreign_acquisition_farmland_2011/report/index. htm, p. 48 (accessed on 28.11.2012). Coalition Working Group, The Coalition's Discussion Paper on Foreign In vestment in Australian Agricultural Land and Agribusiness, August 2012, see: www.liberal.org.au/Share/Foreign_investment_discussion_paper.pdf (accessed on 13.12.2012). B. Moir, Foreign investment and Australian agriculture. Rural Industries Re search and Development CovpoiaxiordAustralian Bureau o f Agricultural and Re source Economics and Science, Canberra 2011, see: https ://rirdc.infoservices. com.au/downloads/11-173 (accessed on 13.12.2012).

242


in agriculture in January 2012.92 Furthermore, the federal government also announced it would introduce a foreign ownership register for agri cultural land.93 Except for the standing committee, all three contribu tions underline their overwhelming commitment to an open and less restricted stance on foreign investments in land while stressing Austra lia’s dependence on foreign investment. Consequently, in this view, foreign investment is deemed to be essential for food production94 while lacking investment would in turn lead to decreasing food production, hence: “Australia’s food security is likely to be further enhanced by ongoing foreign investment in agriculture”.95 These conflictual concepts of and debates over the construction of Australian spaces and the role of places are reflected in opinions ex pressed during our field research in a community in New South Wales, where Hassad Australia recently acquired two properties.96 The area of the Warren Shire is mainly characterized by cotton, grain, and livestock production conducted by a mixture of family-owned farms, absentee landowners, and corporate businesses. Corporate actors in agriculture are neither new nor uncommon, and Hassad Australia is by far not the only foreign investor in the area. Perceptions are embedded within 92 93

94

95

96

Treasurer, Australia ’s Foreign Investment Policy. January 2012, see: www.firb. gov.au/content/_downloads/AFIP_Aug2012.pdf, (accessed on 13.12.2012). The Sydney Morning Herald, “Labor to introduce register fo r foreign owner ship o f land”, 23.10.2012, see: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/ labor-to-introduce-register-for-foreign-ownership-of-land-20121023-282f6. html (accessed on 9.12.2012). “Foreign investment plays an important role in maximising food production and supporting Australia’s position as a major net exporter o f agricultural produce, by financing investment, and delivering productivity gains and technological in novations. Without foreign capital inflows, investment in Australia would be limited, resulting in lower food production with potentially higher food prices, as w ell as lower employment, lower incomes in the sector and lower govern ment revenue”. Cf. Treasurer, Australia’s Foreign Investment Policy. January 2012, see: www.firb.gov.au/content/_downloads/AFIP_Aug2012.pdf, p. 16 (ac cessed on 13.12.2012). B. Moir, Foreign investment and Australian agriculture, Rural Industries Re search and Development Corporation/^ ustralian Bureau o f Agricultural and Re source Economics and Science, Canberra 2011, see: https://rirdc.infoservices. com.au/downloads/11-173, p. 13 (accessed on 13.12.2012). The Warren Shire is located in the “preferred investment corridor for foreign investors” in N ew South Wales (PRD nationwide, Foreign Ownership o f Pri mary Production Land in NSW, First Quarter 2012, p. 2). Qualitative interviews were conducted with farmers, graziers, and local agricultural businessmen, rep resentatives o f the Shire Council and the Aboriginal Land Council in June 2012.


243

broader transformations of Australian agricultural landscape and rural life, which pertain to the accumulation of land ownership by powerful actors, the figure of the “good corporate citizen” who is hoped to engage with and care for the community, and the future role of family farms within these transformations. Discussions reveal, however, that the no tion of food security and the involvement of a foreign sovereign wealth fund make a crucial difference in people’s perception, as the following conversation between a grazier and his wife demonstrates: G: I think the only thing that has really changed is the whole food security thing. [ ...] W: H ow com e w e ’re so keen to get rid o f it? [...] I just don’t understand that you can sell som ething as valuable as land [...] to someone else overseas to produce food, as in the case o f Hassad, w e w on’t get it, it’ll all go back overseas to hom e. G: W ell, part o f that comes back to [...] where you negotiate from a position o f pow er [...]. W: But it’s foreign ow ned though, isn ’t it? [ ...] G: I think that the biggest shift that is happen ing now , w hich is the bit that I find scary, is it’s not one company dealing with another, you might be taking on basically another company which has sovereign backing so y o u ’re not dealing with another company where you have som e realistic com petition, you are dealing with a government w hich has unlim ited backing so you can’t com pete with that. (Grazier and his w ife, Warren, June 2012)

Recently, however, and certainly related to these debates, a shift regard ing Hassad Australia’s communication and self-representation can be observed, a situation that was also strongly emphasised in interviews with representatives of the company in Australia. While Hassad Austra lia’s original goal was to “grow food and ship it to Qatar”, the focus has changed and now lies on “running the company as a commercial enter prise” (interviews with representatives of Hassad Australia, June 2012). The company shall fulfil a kind of “back-up” function, giving Qatar the capacity - if it needs to - to be able to buy the production. If not, the company decides for the most profitable avenue to sell its produce. Thereby, Hassad Australia would become “a true investment of the Qatar investment authority creating commercial return and delivering it to their shareholders”. Additionally, Hassad Australia has been dealing more proactively with the negative image of “food grabber” in pursuing a better marketing of the company, including a certain “transparency campaign”. The company has launched a new website in 2012, includ ing information on farm operations, pictures of agricultural holdings, staff members, as well as declarations concerning ethics (for example,

244


regarding “valuing people” or animal welfare), emphasis of the “Australianness” of the company, and expressions of its commitment to be “a good corporate citizen”: [T]he success o f the business is underpinned by the strength and experience o f its Australian property managers and operators w ho strive for excellence in productivity and sustainability. The company is a com m itted investor in Australian agriculture for the long term and w ill look to partner with key re search organisations and invest in research and developm ent to support fu ture innovation. [Hassad Australia] strives to be an organisation that excels in its corporate responsibilities by being a good corporate citizen and ac tively contributing to and supporting the local com m unities where it oper ates. 7

This new strategy of positioning itself as a foreign direct investor seek ing “commercial business” exposes current discussions about “Australianness” that have unfolded around foreign investments in land proper ties. While British and US investments have been a common characteris tic of Australian agriculture - therefore, modem Australian history can be regarded as a history of land appropriation -recent developments have put new emphasis on questions of national interests, redefinitions of “Australian agricultural land” and, consequently, renegotiations of place. Although representing crucially different cultural and historic con texts, West Bilbeis and Warren as criss-crossings within powergeometries of food security discourses embody both the beginning and ending point of analysis to examine power structures across scales and along flows. In the Australian context, “place” - figuratively negotiated in public discourses but also present in its very meaning of territory - is currently challenged between conflicting logics of allegedly “open” neoliberal places and the claim to enclose places by restricting access again, at least for certain actors. These logics are embedded in broader transformations of Australian ruralities9798 with regard to corporate agri culture and the future of family farming as reflected by members of the community in Warren; moreover, the Hassad company in turn has re sponded to concerns and has embraced them in official statements 97 98

Hassad Australia, see: http://www.hassad.com.auAboiitus.aspx (accessed on 7.10.2012). Cf. I. Gray/G. Lawrence, A Future fo r Regional Australia: Escaping Global Misfortune, Cambridge 2001; B. Pritchard/P. McManus, Land o f Discontent: The Dynamics o f Change in Rural and Regional Australia, Sydney 2000.


245

through their investment strategies on its website. In Egypt, agricultural policies and development projects with their universal package of activi ties range from neoliberal discourses on liberalizing agro-production and decentralizing resource management to policy intervention and control over (un)desired crops and resource use. The renegotiation of these policies has become an inherent part of specific social realities and the power structures they encounter and reshape. New scopes of action that have unfolded within the context of recent political transformations, which are enabled by institutional inconsistencies, can be used for counterhegemonic agendas of contested regulations. Conclusion We have started our analysis with the observation that area studies tradi tionally constructed their object of research along geopolitically, so cially, and culturally defined territorial fixities. Although it is question able whether these representations of the world have ever corresponded to social realities, the increasing emphasis on global entanglements in social sciences clearly shows that this imagination of the world does not fit anymore. Nevertheless, we contend that the core competency of area studies, the production of context-specific empirically grounded knowl edge, is of crucial importance since differences of place still matter. Our understanding of place, however, differs from its prevailing conceptuali zation as being in opposition to the “global”, as being its victim or re treat. By drawing on an understanding of place as simultaneously em bodying and being constitutive of global transformations, we claim that a reflective approach to area studies requires a twofold extension: on the one hand, it has to integrate processes that go beyond spatial and territo rial demarcations of traditional “areas”, while, on the other hand, it has to critically scrutinize concepts of place, which does entail the abandon ing of the connotation of areas studies as studying “the other”, and to integrate various aspects of “the self’. Located at the interface between area studies and geography, we have suggested three steps to achieve this approach: a systematic integration of spatial analysis into area stud ies; a shift from an area-oriented to a problem-oriented focus; and an emphasis on empirically grounded research. Against the backdrop of a review of the fundamental shifts within both area studies and cultural geography, we believe that a critical spatial perspective contributes to the removal of area studies from their “territorial trap”. Furthermore, it

246

Sarah Ruth Sippe 1/Birgit Kemmerling

reveals powerful and resisting imaginations of the world and helps to detect power relations. While both disciplines have incorporated spatial sensitivity, discussions have, however, overwhelmingly remained on the theoretical level. We have sought to overcome the gap between theoreti cal and empirical approaches by analysing food security from three different angles: notions of spatiality; flows; and place. We first identi fied underlying spatialities that have been discursively constructed around food security and demonstrated how food security discourses lead to aspatial representations of areas. We then took a closer look at investment flows that have resulted around and out of these discourses. Our problem-oriented approach focussing on food security turns the spatial logic around and necessitates that the attention is drawn away from considering processes as taking place within areas by looking at phenomena such as food security discourses and their practices that go far beyond traditional understandings of areas and hence dissolve area constructs. These flows, in our case investments in natural resources under the label of achieving food security, reallocate the access to natu ral resources and reshape power relations and social realities. At the same time, we sought to avoid an overemphasis on flows, which bears the risk to make a shift from a “geography of traits” to a pure “geogra phy of flows”, thus failing to recognize its territorial manifestations. Focussing on places, we investigated the crucially different manifesta tions, materializations, and negotiations of food security policies and practices. In our understanding, the consideration of places is crucial as they embody and renegotiate the tensions between flows and fixities. Thus, places do not equal the “local” in contrast to the “global” but are rather simultaneously constituted by and constitutive of global processes through complex power-geometries. Both examples from Egypt and Australia demonstrate the conflicting (re)negotiations around investment flows in land and water. Global discourses and practices, as we have shown, often evolve around strategic alliances without the participation of stakeholders affected by these practices in specific places. Area stud ies and regional geographies usually focus on these power asymmetries and their impacts on rather fixed places, thereby emphasising the mar ginalization of “local” stakeholders. We have suggested to draw a more complex picture and to analyse the criss-crossings of power-geometries in which these “local” stakeholders act and react. The diverse forms of claim making and resistance, of which we presented just two examples from West Bilbeis and Warren, are crucial for a nuanced understanding


247

of places, permanently constituted by and constituting the arenas in which food security is discussed and practised. Obstacles of and limits to our approach, however, remain and are particularly bound to the em pirical aspect. There are not only multiple boundaries with which re searchers are confronted when putting theoretical reflections into prac tice during fieldwork but also challenges related to the prevailing spatialities according to which knowledge about the world is still ordered. As demonstrated, prevalent food security discourses continuously recon struct an aspatialized perspective that homogenizes and equalizes differ ences. More generally, large parts of available empirical data still repro duce “trait geographies”. We, hence, have to deal with the contradiction of simultaneously de- and reconstructing spatial categories of thinking. This, however, does not only apply to area studies as spatializations of the world are inherently part of every kind of knowledge production.