Peer-Reviewed - Matthew A. Schnurr

Please contact me at matthew.schnurr@dal.ca for copies of any articles that you are unable to access through the links provided.

Schnurr. (2012). Inventing Makhathini: Creating a prototype for the dissemination of Genetically Modified crops into Africa. Geoforum, 43(2), 784-792

This article emerged out of research investigating the case of smallholder cotton farmers in the Makhathini Flats, South Africa, who were among the first early adopters of Monsanto’s Bt cotton.. I emphasize the disconnect between the dominant representation of Makhathini that is celebrated in the scholarly and popular literature and the realities faced by its …

Schnurr. (2011). Breeding for insect-resistant cotton across imperial networks, 1924-1950. Journal of Historical Geography, 37(2), 223-231.

This paper investigates the elevated expectations and dramatic downturns of the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation’s African experimentation program. It follows the trials of U.4, an insect-resistant variety bred to withstand continental growing conditions, whose expansion through east and southern Africa was filled with promise but ended in disappointment. Full-text (protected) | Pre-publication version

Schnurr. (2011). The Boom and Bust of Zululand Cotton, 1910-1933. Journal of Southern African Studies, 31(1), 119-134

This article is based on a chapter of my Ph. D. dissertation which investigated the boom and bust of the largest cotton surge in South African history. I argue that cotton figured as a preferred crop within emerging national agricultural policy because it accorded with the political and ideological priorities of the new white settler …

Schnurr & Swatuk. (2010). Critical environmental security: Rethinking the links between natural resources and political violence. New Issues in Security Series 5 (Halifax: Centre for Foreign Policy Studies)

This introductory paper reviews a series of papers that represent a first step towards articulating a critical analysis of environmental security, one that dislodges the state as the preferred level of analysis, seeks to understand threats to security in terms of rights, access and justice, and questions key assumptions that underlie much of the …

Schnurr. (2009). Commodity cropping and the delineation of agricultural space in Natal, 1850–1863. South African Historical Journal, 61, 138-157.

This article recounts the efforts of Natal’s first Secretary for Native Affairs, Theophilus Shepstone, to introduce cotton as a commodity crop among the colony’s Zulu population. I argue that this push for cotton was fuelled by motivations that were political more than agricultural; that cotton was first and foremost about delineating African and settler space …

Peer-Reviewed Articles

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