Crossing Borders: Academe and Cultural Agency in Agricultural Research *

This article explores social educator actions by academe as cultural agency’s natural partner in ways that echo, connect and create plural discourse among the many dimensions and disciplines of society. Based on collaborations with Mexican partners, we argue this goal is achieved with multiplicative effects when students and faculty, key agents themselves and trainers of intercultural agents, learn first-hand by crossing borders to frame issues and work together to articulate collaborative research problems. In so doing a more inclusive worldview becomes integral context in needs assessments. This has been our long-standing pedagogical approach in leading students−undergraduates and graduates−and faculty from around the world on a multidisciplinary, intergenerational examination of rural and urban development in tropical Latin America. Greater academic agency through more alliances of this kind is needed to better achieve equity goals supported by greater investments targeting community engagement and applied problem-solving. We illustrate this learning framework and provide specific livestock research cases in southern Mexico that reveal potentials realized by bringing academe to the field and the field to academe, as part of a reinforcing educational process that promotes understanding and social transformation.

• Publication year

  2015

• Venue

  The Journal of Agricultural Science

• Publication date

  2015-01-15

• Fields of study

  Agricultural and Food Sciences, Sociology, Education

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.5539/JAS.V7N2P9
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• The Discourses of Diversity: Language, Ethnicity, and Interculturality in Latin America

  2020influential reference
• Group Model Building to Assess Rural Dairy Cooperative Feasibility in South-Central Mexico

  2013cited by this paper
• Development and Evaluation of an Integrated Simulation Model for Assessing Smallholder Crop-Livestock Production in Yucatán, Mexico

  2011cited by this paper
• Application of a simulation model for assessing integration of smallholder shifting cultivation and sheep production in Yucatan, Mexico

  2011cited by this paper
• Economic analysis of alternative nutritional management of dual-purpose cow herds in central coastal Veracruz, Mexico

  2011cited by this paper
• Limitations and potentials of dual-purpose cow herds in Central Coastal Veracruz, Mexico

  2011cited by this paper
• Effects of weed control and manure application on nutrient fluxes in the shifting cultivation milpa system of Yucatán

  2011cited by this paper
• Acquiring Cultural Perceptions during Study Abroad: The Influence of Youthful Associates

  2010cited by this paper
• Managing maize production in shifting cultivation milpa systems in Yucatán, through weed control and manure application

  2009cited by this paper
• MANAGEMENT OF HEIFER GROWTH IN DUAL-PURPOSE CATTLE SYSTEMS IN THE LOW HUASTECA REGION OF VERACRUZ, MEXICO

  2009influential reference
• ANALYSIS OF PRODUCTIVITY, NUTRITIONAL CONSTRAINTS AND MANAGEMENT OPTIONS IN BEEF CATTLE SYSTEMS OF EASTERN YUCATAN, MEXICO: A CASE STUDY OF COW-CALF PRODUCTIVITY IN THE HERDS OF TIZIMIN, YUCATAN

  2007cited by this paper
• Cultural agency in the Americas

  2005cited by this paper
• Livestock, land use change, and environmental outcomes in the developing world

  2004cited by this paper
• Agroindustrialization through institutional innovation

  1999cited by this paper

• Three previous recorded species of Dactylogyrus Diesing, 1850 (Monogenea: Dactylogyridae) infecting cultured Carassius auratus in southern Brazil

  2019cites this paper
• Cassava cell wall characterization and degradation by a multicomponent NSP-targeting enzyme (NSPase)

  2019cites this paper
• Co-introduction success of monogeneans infecting the fisheries target Limnothrissa miodon differs between two non-native areas: the potential of parasites as a tag for introduction pathway

  2018cites this paper