Sustainable Development

Research & Teaching Interests:

Jacqui's research and teaching interests include global environmental politics, the politics of food and agriculture, globalization and development, global political economy, technology, politics, and society, social movements, peace and conflict, and Africa and the United States.

Education:

Ph.D., 2015, Government & Politics, University of Maryland, College Park

M.A., 2007, International Relations, San Francisco State University

B.A., 2002, Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

Teaching:

SD 2400 Principles of Sustainable Development

SD 3350 Land, Life, and the Global Food Economy

Background:

Before joining the Goodnight Family Department of Sustainable Development, Jacqueline Ignatova completed a Fulbright fellowship in Ghana to support her dissertation fieldwork on the politics of genetically modified crops and agricultural modernization in Ghana. She defended her dissertation in Summer 2015 at the University of Maryland, College Park Department of Government & Politics. Her research and teaching interests include global environmental politics, the politics of food and agriculture, globalization and development, global political economy, technology, politics, and society, social movements, peace and conflict, and Africa and the United States.

 Jacqueline is currently working on her book project, Seeds of Contestation: Genetically Modified Crops and the Politics of Agricultural Modernization in Ghana. Using a blend of discourse analysis, political economy, and ethnographic fieldwork, she examines the ways in which the new Green Revolution in Africa triggers struggles over authority, knowledge, and identity. The project explores how the framing of genetically modified seeds as a particularly risky or transformative technology encourages management by experts in biosafety, professional advocacy, and the law. In the face of contestation over GMOs, the promotion of ‘pro-poor’ biotechnology in Africa is deployed to reframe biotechnology as a humanitarian enterprise. The project demonstrates how the “donation” of such technology serves to advance new markets in Africa under the pretext of providing a philanthropic response to perceived food insecurities. Discourse analysis is deployed alongside ethnography to show that these grand plans to transform African agricultural systems are constantly challenged by the existing complexity of Africans’ multiple, coexisting roles, risk reduction practices, and notions of entrepreneurship.