2022 Geography Honors Presentations

Macalester College Weyerhaeuser Boardroom
Wednesday, April 13, 2022, 10:00 am – 1:55 pm CST – Hybrid Via Zoom
(25 Minute Presentation and 15 Minute Q&A)

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10:00 am

“Bloodshed, baptism, beer: racial capitalism and settler colonialism on the medieval Baltic”
Presenter:  Nick Salvato
Committee:  Bill Moseley, Holly Barcus & Karin Velez
Abstract: Scholarly and popular usage of the term “racial capitalism” has increased exponentially over the past decade, but the validity and implications of its use remain hotly contested. The late Cedric Robinson is the undisputed popularizer of this phrase and is referenced widely by both the slogan’s detractors and proponents. Despite this, little work has been done to engage with the core of his argument about racial capitalism: that capitalism is inalienably racial due to the racialism of the medieval European societies that spawned it. Debates over Robinson’s ideas have thus disregarded the substance of his deployment of the phrase and eliminated his historicist critique of the European social sciences. This paper attempts to correct this lacuna through a case study of racial extractivism in a colonial region of medieval Europe: the German Ordenstaat of Livonia. I draw on the methodologies of radical historical geographers within Black Studies to generate a synthetic analysis of regional historical literatures about premodern Catholic colonialism. I find that structural racism was central in funding and organizing the institutional antecedents of the capitalist world-system which emerged in the 16th century. Ultimately, I argue that Robinson’s historicist critique disrupts many ontological assumptions about the motivating forces, developmental trends, and leading protagonists of capitalism as a theoretical object.

10:45 am

“Food Security and Dietary Diversity among Conventional and Organic Tea-Smallholders in Central and Southern Sri Lanka”
Presenter:  Nethmi Bathige
Committee:  Bill Moseley, Laura Smith, Arjun Guneratne
Abstract: In Sri Lanka, smallholder tea producers grow 70 percent of the country’s tea and bring in significant export earnings. However, when the country moved towards a more liberalized economy in 1977, growing cash crops such as tea for exports increased. As a result, there was a cut-back in subsistence agriculture as farmers made space to grow more commercial crops. This research treats tea smallholder households as a unit of study. It looks at how economic status (average income and wealth rankings), level of subsistence, and method of tea farming (organic or conventional) have influenced food security and dietary diversity outcomes. I used data collected in the summer of 2021 from 47 organic and 67 conventional tea smallholders in 6 rural communities of Southern and Central Sri Lanka. My findings show that organic farming is associated with greater dietary diversity among tea smallholders than conventional farming, growing a greater variety of cash crops is associated with greater dietary diversity, and increasing household incomes through selling crops result in greater levels of dietary diversity. I also examine how the country’s recent ban on imports of chemical fertilizers used by conventional tea farmers has impacted their dietary diversity and food security outcomes. Furthermore, I examine how the smallholder tea sector has felt the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the looming economic crisis in Sri Lanka.

11:30 am

“Bamboozled: Evaluating Bamboo Coverage within a Fragmented Semi-Deciduous Forest Landscape in Coastal Ecuador ”
Presenter: Nick Jacobson
Committee:  Xavier Haro-Carrion, Eric Carter, Bill Moseley
Abstract: Mapping the spatial distribution of bamboo in coastal Ecuador is necessary as bamboo moves into further consideration as an environmentally friendly, socially equitable, and economically viable alternative land use in the region. In this study, I evaluate the geographic extent of bamboo cover in a portion of Manabí Province, coastal Ecuador, a region purported to have the most bamboo cover in Ecuador and an area critical to biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation efforts. Utilizing a novel integration of PlanetScope (satellite) and UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle, drone) imagery, I develop two Random Forest (ensemble learning) land-cover classification models across the wet and dry seasons. Classification accuracy was higher for the dry season model at 82.7% compared to 75.7% for the wet season model.  The land-cover map produced with the dry season model indicates that the average size of bamboo patches is small, between 0.01 and .03 sq. km. Total bamboo coverage in the study area of 1347 sq. km was estimated at 264.4 sq. km. The dry-season land-cover map also indicates that bamboo is most commonly found in association with fluvial systems and small farms, relating to the uses of bamboo as an erosion control mechanism and a source of building material. These results provide critical baseline information for further bamboo socio-ecological research, the work of bamboo-related non-profits, and governmental policies as Ecuador begins to develop its bamboo sector and pursue the potential environmental and social benefits of bamboo. Furthermore, this study adds to the growing methodology on the integration of UAV and satellite imagery and advanced classifiers like Random Forest to classify complex vegetated landscapes in tropical regions.

12:15 pm

“Hillbillies, Country Legends, and God’s Green Earth: Understanding the Sister Tourism Meccas of Branson, Missouri and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee”
Presenter:  Audrey Wuench ’22
Committee:  Laura Smith, Holly Barcus, Dan Trudeau
One reason people engage in tourism is to “escape” from their normal life. As the United States urbanized in the twentieth century, many sought out experiences that evoked the “simpler” rural past. Branson, Missouri and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee serve as case studies for this phenomenon in Ozarkian and Appalachian tourism. As modern tourism in these two places took shape in the 1960s, American country music was starting to align more with the New Right. While country music is a broader geographical phenomenon, country music paints these tourism landscapes with its perceived themes of patriotism, conservative Christianity, family and tradition, and thus plays a significant role in the marketing and appeal of these places to tourists. When country music occupies these tourist spaces, it carries a weight that can exclude certain groups of tourists, which prevents the expansion of tourist bases. Through the application of tourism geography concepts and textual analysis of promotional tourism materials, this thesis will show how this narrow targeted focus can hinder places like Branson and Pigeon Forge from practicing sustainable tourism.

1:15 pm

“Rural Resiliency: The Cause and Effect of Minnesota’s Maternal Health Crisis”
Presenter: Annabel Gregg
Committee:  Holly Barcus, Dan Trudeau, Liz Jansen
Abstract: The United States is experiencing a maternal health crisis that disproportionately affects those who give birth in rural communities. Rural birthing people have higher maternal mortality rates, increased risk of postpartum hemorrhage, non-indicated cesarean sections, and other adverse health outcomes. Despite the enhanced risk of rural birth, rural communities are losing access to hospital-based obstetric care at an unprecedented rate. The state of Minnesota has vast rural territory, with one-fourth of its population living outside the urban sphere — making it a strategic area of study. As of July 2021, 31% of Minnesota’s 91 rural hospitals were at risk of closing. The repercussions of obstetric loss reverberate through rural communities, leaving indelible physical, emotional, and economic impacts. This paper seeks to identify why American rural communities are experiencing the loss of hospital-based obstetric services and how local communities in rural Minnesota respond to the lack of maternal healthcare. Using a mixed-methods approach, this paper compares findings from a systematic literature review to survey responses and ethnographic interviews from birth workers and birthing people across Greater Minnesota. This research intentionally seeks out and uplifts rural knowledge as a means of highlighting the resiliency of Greater Minnesota. Preliminary findings from interviews suggest that communities identify macro-level issues as barriers to equitable high-quality care and Minnesota’s rural communities respond to the maternal health crisis with place-based and community-specific public health measures. This study highlights the lived experiences and local knowledge that is collectively held by rural communities and provides critical insights into the reality of rural birthing in Minnesota.