Matthew A. Schnurr
I am an Associate Professor in the Department of International Development Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. My research interests focus on the politics of agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Simulating the Sustainable Development Goals: Scaffolding, Social Media and Self-Reported Learning Outcomes Amongst Entry-Level Students. Journal of Political Science Education
Schnurr, M.A. and Taylor, A. (2021). This paper addresses two crucial gaps in the scholarship on the design and execution Simulation-Based Education (SBE) – the importance of scaffolding in constructing successful simulations for entry-level students and the associated value of social media tools. We examine these issues within three successive iterations of a role-play simulation …
Women’s Empowerment in Africa: Critical Reflections on the Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI). African Studies Review
Addison, L, Schnurr, M.A., Gore, C. and Bawa, S. (2021). This commentary unpacks the underlying assumptions underpinning the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI). The WEAI has emerged as a popular survey tool designed to measure women’s inclusion, agency, and empowerment in the agricultural sector. By revealing key flaws and assumptions underpinning this survey tool, our goal …
Young people’s perceptions of identities in a rural oil and gas town experiencing boom-bust economic cycles. Journal of Applied Youth Studies, 3, p.275–292
Twum-Anti, A.E., Jeffries, P., Theron, L., Schnurr, M.A., & Ungar, M. (2020). To investigate young people’s experiences of living in a community dependent on resource extraction and processing industries during boom-bust economic cycles, we used a qualitative multi-method approach to engage 50 youth ages 13–24 in a study of resilience and well-being. As part of …
Social-ecological resilience through a biocultural lens: A participatory methodology to support global targets and local priorities. Ecology and Society 25(3)
Ungar, M. McRuer, J. Liu, X. Theron, L. Blais, D. and Schnurr, M.A. (2020). More research is needed to properly represent social-ecological system (SES) interactions that support the integrity of biological and cultural, i.e., biocultural, relationships in places experiencing environmental, economic, and social change. In this paper we offer a novel methodology to address this …
Bridging the gap between the Research Ethics Board and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 10(1)
Schnurr, M.A. and Taylor, A. (2019). In 2016, Dalhousie University’s Research Ethics Board created an interdisciplinary working group to identify the key ethical challenges of SoTL research, with the overarching aim of recommending best practices and communicating these to researchers in order to support and expand the conduct of ethically sound SoTL research. This essay …
Limits to biofortification: farmer perspectives on a Vitamin-A enriched banana in Uganda. Journal of Peasant Studies, 47(2), 326-345.
Schnurr, M.A. Addison, L. and Mujabi-Mujuzi, S. (2020). This paper draws on three data sets to evaluate whether biofortification fix synchs with existing farming systems, using the case study of the East African Highland Banana, known locally as matooke in Uganda. We argue that the positive scenario outlined by proponents rests on a number of assumptions related to the …
Which variables influence farmer adoption of Genetically Modified (GM) orphan crops? Measuring attitudes and intentions to adopt GM matooke banana in Uganda, AgBioForum 20(2), 133-147.
Schnurr, M.A. and Addison, L. (2017). This study uses participatory ranking exercises to investigate the variables that determine attitudes and intentions to adopt matooke banana in Uganda. Results suggest that attitudes and potential patterns of adoption will vary significantly according to region, farm size, membership in a farmer’s association, previous experience with improved varieties and …
GMOs and poverty: Yield gaps, differentiated impacts and the search for alternative questions. Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 38(1), 149-157
Schnurr, M.A. (2017). This short commentary reflects on the question: Can genetically modified (GM) crops help the poor? It aims not to provide a definitive answer but rather to grapple with the question itself, in the hope of illuminating some of the critical assumptions and values that shape exchanges on this polarising and politicised question. …
Introduction to symposium on labor, gender and new sources of agrarian change. Agriculture and Human Values, 33(4), 961-965
Addison, L. and Schnurr, M.A. (2016). In this symposium introduction, we review how scholarship in agrarian political economy has engaged with agrarian change through links to labor, land use and gender relations. We argue that the integration of labor and gender offers a particularly insightful framework for not only assessing contemporary patterns of agrarian change, …
Growing burdens: Disease-resistant Genetically Modified Banana and the gendered implications for labour in Uganda. Agriculture and Human Values, 33(4), 967-978
Addison, L. and Schnurr, M.A. (2016). This article explores the research we conducted in Uganda regarding the introduction of genetically modified varieties of Matooke, a traditional cooking banana that is the country’s primary carbohydrate. Full-text (protected)