42 days remaining

Well, my predictions were a bit off, but I knew they would give me a sovereignty question...I just guessed the wrong one. So I'll give myself half-credit this time ; )
Here they are in all their glory:

Systematic Field—Political, Cultural, Development

1.       How has James Scott’s Weapons of the Weak and Tim Cresswell’s In Place / Out of Place shaped conceptions of resistance in human geography over the past two and a half decades? What do you see as the future directions for geographers engaging the notion of “resistance”? (six pages)

2.       Explore Foucault’s notion of governmentality. Critically assess the ways this concept has been used in development theory by authors writing from a post-colonial perspective, such as Partha Chatterjee (2004), Tanya Li (2007) and Michael Watts (2003). (four pages)

Synthetic Themes—Agrofood networks, the region of Latin America

1.       Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Friedman and McMichael’s (1989) concept of “food regime,” which has been seen by many scholars as a useful tool in exploring global food and agricultural production systems.  Ground your discussion using examples from Latin America. (six pages)

2.       Food sovereignty, a term coined in 1996 by the trans-national agrarian movement La Via Campesina, represents a new conception of sovereignty based on the right to and power over food resources. In what ways does the concept of food sovereignty challenge traditional political geographic thinking on sovereignty? (four pages)

Geographic Thought and Methods:

1.       In response to the startling discussions over the Bowman Expeditions, the AAG convened  a panel to discuss ethics in research at the 2009 annual meeting and subsequently updated the 1998 [2005] ‘Statement on Professional Ethics’ and in 2010, the Indigenous People’s Specialty Group released the “Declaration of Key Questions about Research Ethics with Indigenous Communities.” Situate these documents in relation to longstanding debates on ethics in geographical research, and examine whether these policies have adequately addressed issues of ethics and informed consent in relation to indigenous communities. (four pages)

2.      Recently, geographers in a range of subfields have used actor-network theory to adopt a non-dichotomous approach to theory that has traditionally been bound up in understandings of systems (Guthman, 2010). Critically examine how actor-network theory has been taken up in at least two different sub-fields in geography and assess whether this approach successfully addresses the shortcomings of a “systems analysis” identified by Guthman. (six pages)

3.       Post-structural theory has been widely engaged and critiqued in geographical thought. What are the most telling uses and critiques of post-structural theory in geography? What do those uses and critiques suggest to you about where things are going in the discipline? (six pages)

 ....and no, I am not going to answer them in order. And yes, if you look closely, my committee did make some changes...

I'm starting with the question on food sovereignty and then moving to resistance; that way it'll be fun.