Spring/Summer 2005 - University of Toronto Press Publishing

SOCIOLOGY / ANTHROPOLOGYImproved EarthPrairie Space as Modern Artefact, 1869–1944Rod BantjesSustainability and theCivil CommonsRural Communities in the Age of GlobalizationJennifer SumnerImproved Earth is a history of the making of‘abstract spaces of modernity’ in the setting of theCanadian prairies, particularly rural Saskatchewan,from 1869 to 1944. Rod Bantjes demonstrates howthree interrelated projects – state formation, agrarianclass formation, and the transformation of theenvironment – were conceived in spatial terms andemployed competing visions of spatial possibility.Bantjes proposes that the prairies be thought ofas a site of modernity, and makes a case for viewingprairie farmers as ‘modernists’ who not onlyembraced, but took an active role in the making ofmodernity. Indeed, many of the questions thatexcited the imaginations of prairie politicians andreformers are alive today: the ecological and socialvalue of ‘localization’ in agricultural production; thepotentials for ‘community’ maintained and linkedby transportation and communications technologies;and the possibilities of democratic decentralizationwithin large translocal networks.The first systematic treatment of the spatialdimensions of the colonization of the prairie west,Improved Earth is a unique and thorough study certainto provoke new debates about the way spaceand time are imagined.Rod Bantjes is an associate professor in theDepartment of Sociology and Anthropology at St.Francis Xavier University.Often used but little understood, the word ‘sustainability’is potent in its ability to evoke a better worldbased on economic, social, and environmental justice.The concept of sustainability, however, hasbeen strikingly under-theorized. Sustainability andthe Civil Commons provides what has been lackingsince the publication of the Brundtland Report – afirm foundation and a clear vision of alternatives.Using rural communities as her referencepoint,Jennifer Sumner exposes the unsustainableimpacts of corporate globalization, and develops aframework to explain why current definitions ofsustainability are profoundly inadequate. From thisfoundation, she allies sustainability with the conceptof the civil commons – including universalhealthcare, environmental protocols, workplacesafety regulations, and public education – demonstratinghow globalizing the civil commons, notcorporate-sponsored trade treaties, opens the wayfor truly ‘sustainable globalization.’ Sustainabilityand the Civil Commons moves beyond rural rootsthrough Antonio Gramsci’s model of hegemony,Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicativeaction, and John McMurtry’s life-value ethics tobuild a comprehensive understanding of sustainabilitythat combines global reach with local focus.It will be an invaluable resource for scholars andpractitioners interested in sustainability, globalization,community development, and rural studies.Jennifer Sumner is an assistant professor in theAdult Education and Community DevelopmentProgram at the Ontario Institute for Studies inEducation of the University of Toronto.Approx. 280 pp / 6 x 9 / March 20059 mapsCloth ISBN 0-8020-8782-5 £25.00 $40.00 EApprox. 180 pp / 6 x 9 / January 2005Cloth ISBN 0-8020-7999-7 £28.00 $45.00 E52