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Sally Daly

Sally Daly

P: +353-1-4027191
E: sdaly1@dit.ie
Campus: Aungier Street

Research Topic: A 'Season' of Change: Regulation and Agency on 'Local' Sites of Production

The research is centrally concerned with the thematic of horticultural production in Ireland and the contingent role of labour. With a dearth of literature addressing changes in agricultural/horticultural work-environments in Ireland, I am interested in developing an analysis on how issues of regulation, agency, mobility and labour are located specifically in relation to the production end of the food supply chain. Falling unit margins and increasing costs of production has resulted in greater specialisation in the sector, with farmers and growers increasing output to maintain viability and adapting production to serve a more demanding retail market. The politicisation of workplace relations suggests that two realms generally considered in isolation, the economic and the political should be examined as interconnected. Prevalent assumptions about the primary economic influences must be challenged and the reciprocal impacts of the two explored (Wells, 1996).

I draw on a number of scholars in human geography and sociology to contextualise the use of certain terms, i.e. ‘local' and ‘seasonal'; and how these terms shape and partly influence outcomes along the food supply chain. The study is situated across interdisciplinary fields of inquiry, involving human geography, sociology, ethnography and social policy. This research aims to offer a distinctive critical perspective on issues which foreground current discussions on food and sustainability. What is distinctive about the work is the ethnographic participation in literal field sites in dialogue with analysis from interviews with growers and workers, in the fields and with a broader discourse on agri-food politics.

Publications

2010
‘Positioning ‘local'; regulation, labour and the food supply chain' in After the Crash: the New Human Geographies of Ireland. Caroline Crowley and Denis Linehan (Eds.). Manchester University Press (forthcoming).

Conferences

2010
‘A "season" of change: intensification, mobility and agency on ‘local' sites of production'. New Migrations, New Challenges: Trinity Immigration Initiative International Conference, 30 June-3 July 2010. Trinity College Dublin.

2009
‘Unearthing Change within Horticultural Production Practices in Ireland'(revised version). Paper presented at The Migration and the Irish Workplace Symposium, 5th June 2009; Employment Research Centre, Trinity College Dublin.

‘Unearthing Change within Horticultural Production in Ireland'. May 15 2009. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of Irish Geographers 2009, University College Cork.

2008
‘A study of labour within Horticulture; the journey from farm to fork'. Paper presented at the Trinity Immigration Initiative ‘Migration Studies in Ireland-An Interdiscuplinary Conference'. 26th-28th March 2008. Trinity College Dublin.

Workshops

2010
‘Writing Across Boundaries'; Exploring analytical and practical approaches to writing. Explorations in Representation, Rhetoric and Writing in Qualitative Research: 29th & 30th March, Writing Workshop, Department of Anthropology, Durham University, UK.

Research

2010
Country Researcher: ‘The Fundamental Rights of Irregular Migrant Domestic Workers'.
The International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD); "Fundamental Rights Situation of Irregular Immigrants in the EU" (FRIM) on behalf of the Fundamental Rights Agency in Vienna, jointly with a number of individual international experts (see link):http://www.eliamep.gr/en/frim-the-fundamental-rights-situation-of-irregular-immigrants-in-the-european-union/

2008
Research on ‘Exploitation in Ireland's Restaurant Industry' on behalf of Migrant Rights Centre Ireland's Restaurant Worker Action Group. Dublin. Available at: http://www.mrci.ie/publications/index.htm

 

 

 

 



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