Predicting my exams

Today I have the meeting where I defend the questions that I wrote for my comps. The ones with the question mark...not the answers...
The process in my department (qualifying/comprehensive exams processes differ between departments and disciplines) is to write your questions based on your area of study and work on subsequent drafts with your advisor and then finally submit them to your doctoral committee for review.
So, this morning I will defend my questions and then be excused from the room while the committee chooses 7 from the 15 questions that I wrote. The questions fall into three main sections: systematic field, synthetic theme and thought/methodology.
The writing period is six weeks. I start next Monday (17th).
I will write 3 answers at 4 pages in length and 4 answers at 6 pages in length.
After I turn in my answers (6 weeks from Monday) I have an oral defense that will last 3-4 hours.
Of the 15 questions I drafted, I have a guess at which ones may be chosen going into the meeting,based on the make-up and interests of my committee members...this is where I will record my guesses (starred questions=predicted guess).

I also, want to use this medium as an outlet for updates over the next 6 weeks as I disappear into the literature. And really, I must say, I think I will need some support from outside the department in this case. So I'm hoping folks will use the blog to check in and say hello. Exams are an isolating experience. Students are not allowed to discuss their questions/answers with their colleagues as they are writing. The rest of the academic quarter will be given over to writing for me.

Below are the questions I submitted to my committee:

Systematic Field—Political, Cultural, Development

*1. How has critical geopolitics challenged traditional debates in political geography, particularly regarding the concept of sovereignty?

*2. James Scott’s Weapons of the Weak (1985) is a key text for understanding everyday resistance. How has everyday resistance been theorized in cultural geography since the publication of this influential work?  Focus on tracing the contours of evolving debates about resistance in human geography since the publication of Tim Cresswell’s In Place/Out of Place (1996), which has become a vital piece in understanding transgression and resistance.

3. Explore Foucault’s notion of governmentality. How has this concept been engaged in critical development theory by authors writing from a post-colonial perspective, such as Partha Chatterjee (2004), Tanya Li (2007) and Michael Watts (2003)?

4. How does the use of David Harvey’s concept of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ contribute to key debates in geographic thinking on development, specifically on the control of natural resources?

*5. In a recent piece in Cultural Geographies, Cresswell argued that identifying as a cultural geographer in the 21st century is a “curious state of being “(2010:169), noting that as a result of the ‘cultural turn’  many human geographers consider themselves cultural geographers. How has the cultural turn transformed what it means to be a cultural geographer?

  

Synthetic Themes—Agrofood networks, the region of Latin America

1. The concept of “food regime” developed by Friedman and McMichael (1989) has been a useful tool in exploring global food and agricultural production systems and in situating these dynamics in relation to processes of capital accumulation across time and space. Discuss the food regime approach developed by Friedmann and McMichael and explain how it has been used to understand global food and agricultural systems. What does this framework tell us about the history and politics of Latin American food systems?

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?

3. Academic discussions regarding ‘local’ and organic food in the global North have recently become the subject of animated debates. How have the terms local and organic been mobilized within academic discussions of food and how has it shifted over time from potential panacea to more critical work, which calls for new terminology?

4. The increased global desire for agrofuels has led many states in Latin America to open up land for agrofuel production, including the production of oil palm. What are the social and biophysical implications of agrofuel production? How has the promotion of agrofuels shaped rural development policy and how does such agricultural development challenge social movements that advocate food sovereignty?

*5. The promotion of import substitution and industrialization (ISI) between the 1940s and the 1970s transformed Mexico’s urban and rural spaces. Trace the contours of rural ‘modernization’ in this period, focusing in particular on how ISI remade rural landscapes and how it transformed the relationship between peasants and the state in Mexico.

*6. How have indigenous movements in Latin America transformed the region’s socio-political landscapes, particularly in the period following the 1994 Zapatista Uprising? 

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 assess whether these policies have adequately addressed issues of ethics and informed consent within indigenous communities.

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). 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.

*3. Post-structural theory has been widely engaged and critiqued in geographical thought. Identify at least three key ways that post-structural thought has transformed geographical inquiry over the last two to three decades, using specific examples of work done by geographers in your discussion. What challenges or limitations do you see emerge from geographers’ engagement with post-structural theory?

4. Research using participatory methods has gained much traction in social and behavioral sciences since the 1990s, promoting broad participation of stakeholders in the research process and attempting to reach a mutually beneficial praxis (Bacon, et al, 2005; Savin-Baden & Wimpenny, 2007). Savin-Baden and Wimpenny (2007) argue that Participatory Action Research (PAR) presents a valuable framework to explore research aims, yet find that it has rarely been undertaken by geographers. What are the potential benefits and limitations to human geographers in developing and deploying PAR as a methodology?

Despite, the trepidation I have going into these exams, they are not designed to be evil. I've heard of much worse exam regimes at different schools. Instead, the objectives of the exam are to demonstrate a knowledge of the field---to test the competency of students to teach in the field.