Since 2012, I have engaged in research on agrarian change with smallholder farmers and families in The Commonwealth of Dominica, a rural island nation in the Eastern Caribbean. My work explores how rural households and communities continue to cultivate sustainable livelihoods from farming despite increasingly challenging dynamics of climate change and economic globalization.
Research Description
Building and maintaining local capacities in farming and food security are growing concerns of global significance; yet little is known about the conditions that enable local food production to succeed. My dissertation investigates the sustainability of transitions from export to local food production in Dominica. The project is designed as a comparative, mixed-methods study, which utilizes ethnographic, quantitative, geospatial (GIS), and archival data to understand the multi-scaled dynamics of agricultural and livelihood change. Major funders of field research (2017-2019) include the National Science Foundation, Fulbright-Hays, PEO International, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
VIEW A STORY MAP THAT OUTLINES SOME OF THE MAJOR FINDINGS OFTHIS RESEARCH
Selected Publications
King, Samantha. “Sustainable Transitions in Agricultural Livelihoods: Global Change and Local Food Production in Dominica.” PhD Dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (2022).
King, Samantha. “Local food/global logics: disconnects in the policy and practice of Caribbean agriculture.” Journal of Political Ecology. (accepted, minor revisions).
King, Samantha. 2021. “GIS as a bridge across the digital divide: Engaging participatory methods to build capacity in research communities.” Practicing Anthropology. 43, no. 1 (2021): 35-41.
King, Samantha. “Seeds of Change: Farming Traditions and Climate Futures.” Dominica Geographic. January (2020): 116-123.
King, Samantha, and Andy Berner. “Cultivating Hope: Global Change and Local Food Production in Dominica.” Urban and Regional Studies. October 25 (2018).
SAMANTHA KING, PhD 