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, De Santo, & Craig. (2013). Using a blended learning approach to simulate the negotiation of a multilateral environmental agreement. International Studies Perspectives, 14, 109-129.

This is the first in a series of publications evaluating the effectiveness of a role-play simulation that integrates three educational delivery methods — preparatory learning, face-to-face learning, and online collaborative learning — to recreate the complexity of negotiating global environmental issues. Qualitative student feedback is used to analyze the benefits and challenges of this approach. …

Schnurr. (2013). Cotton as calamitous commodity: The politics of agricultural failure in Natal and Zululand, 1844-1938. Canadian Journal of African Studies, 47(1), 115-132.

This article follows the efforts of white settlers to impose cotton as an export crop in Natal and Zululand. Touted as a commodity capable of remaking land and life in the region in the 1850s, the 1860s, and again in the 1910s and 1920s, cotton never achieved more than marginal status in the region’s …

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 …

Peer-Reviewed Articles

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