Diet for a Small Planet author addresses global development symposium

By Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.

A symposium titled "Global Developments in the 21st Century" will be hosted by Cornell's new Robert A. and Ruth E. Polson Institute for Global Development Sept. 21-22 on campus. The symposium will have two public lectures, including the keynote address by global activist Frances Moore Lappé, author of the classic book Diet for a Small Planet.

The symposium's first public lecture, "Dealing with Globalization: Counter-movements for Care and Community in a Market-Driven World," will be given by Peter Evans, professor of sociology at the University of California-Berkeley, at 2 p.m. in the Memorial Room at Willard Straight Hall.

The talk by Lappé, "Food and Hunger: Learning to See the Unexpected," will be Sept. 21 at 3:30 p.m. in the Memorial Room of Willard Straight Hall. Lappé, who is director of the Small Planet Project and a senior fellow at Second Nature in Boston, has just revised Diet for a Small Planet with her daughter, Anna Lappé. The forthcoming book's title is Hope's Edge: The New Diet for a Small Planet.

On Saturday, Sept. 22, the symposium will continue in 401 Warren Hall. The sessions and presentations will be:

9-10:45 a.m., Food and Natural Resources:

• Jan L. Flora, Iowa State University, "Advocacy Coalitions and Natural Resource Management at the Local Level: Examples From the Andes."
• Saba Mebrahtu, UNICEF-Pakistan, "The Economic Rationale for Investing in Nutrition: The Case of Vitamin A Deficiency Control in Pakistan."
• Jack Kloppenburg Jr., University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Of Food Systems and Foodsheds: A Pilgrim's Progress, or There and Back Again."

11:15 a.m.-1 p.m., Governance and Globalization:

• Louise Fortmann, University of California-Berkeley, "If You're Living on the Zambezi, Globalization Looks Like a Wall of Oncoming Water."
• Nancy Peluso, University of California-Berkeley, "Political Forests, Environmental Security and other Legacies of 20th Century Global Politics."
• Cornelia Flora, Iowa State University, "Globalization and Changing Relations Between Market, State and Civil Society."

3:15-5 p.m., Class, Culture and Resistances:

• Martijn van Beek, Aarhus University, Denmark, "Making a Difference: Reflections on Recognition and Empowerment."
• Filomeno Aguilar, James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, "Transborder Class Relations and the Paradoxes of National Culture: A Southeast Asian View."
• Amita Baviskar, University of Delhi, India, "Red in Tooth and Claw: Looking for Class in Struggles Over Nature."

The Polson Institute was established this year as a research-outreach facility within the Department of Rural Sociology in Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The institute will promote theoretical and applied research activities related to worldwide development. It will focus on studying social movements, civil society and governance, inequalities and social exclusion, food and agricultural systems, gender and identity transformation, population changes, and community and environment issues.

Philip D. McMichael, Cornell professor and chair of the Department of Rural Sociology, serves as the interim director of the institute. David L. Brown, Cornell professor of rural sociology, will take office as director Sept. 21.

The institute was named for Robert Polson, the late Cornell professor of rural sociology, and his wife, the late Ruth Polson, Cornell B.S. '42, Ph.D. '51. Robert Polson's career teaching rural sociology at Cornell spanned more than four decades. Ruth Polson taught English and music at Ithaca High School.

For more information on the institute, visit the web site http://www.cals.cornell.edu/polson/.