Department/College/UnitSocial Sciences Division

TitleAssociate Professor

AffiliationFaculty

Other UCSC Campus AffiliationCommunity Studies Program
Science & Justice Research Center
Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas
Coastal Science & Policy Program

Web SiteUC

Primary Office LocationInterdisciplinary Sciences Building
426

Office HoursWednesday 2-4pm (winter and spring 2025)

Mail StopEnvironmental Studies

Biography, Education and Training

Ph.D., Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

M.S., Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

B.S., Development Sociology/Natural Resource Management, Cornell University

Summary of Expertise

Agri-food systems, environmental sociology, political ecology, globalization and development, ownership and access to land

Research Interests

I do qualitative sociological research on the political economy of the global agro-food system. I am particularly interested in how transnational economic processes shape access to food, land, and other natural resources globally. My current projects explore the financial sector's growing interest in buying farmland, as well as the dynamics of the agri-food technology sector. My first book, Fields of Gold: Financing the Global Land Rush, was released in 2020 by Cornell University Press. 

Selected Publications

Book

Fairbairn, Madeleine. 2020. Fields of Gold: Financing the Global Land Rush. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Open access. 

Articles

Reisman, Emily, Madeleine Fairbairn, and Zenia Kish. 2025. “Agrarian platform capitalism: Digital rentiership comes to farming.” Antipode 57(1): 412-432.

Guthman, Julie and Madeleine Fairbairn. 2024. “Speculating on collapse: Unrealized socioecological fixes of agri-food tech.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 56(8): 412-432.

Jiménez-Soto, Estelí, Madeleine Fairbairn, Joji Muramoto, and Carol Shennan. 2024. “Agriculture against the wall: Barriers and opportunities for agroecological transitions in California’s industrial landscapes.” Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. 48(3): 432-460.

Fairbairn, Madeleine and Emily Reisman. 2024. “The incumbent advantage: Corporate power in agri-food tech.” Journal of Peasant Studies. 51(6): 1331-1354.

Peterson, K. Aysha, Madeleine Fairbairn, and Flora Lu. 2024. “Between maintenance and transformation: Reading for difference in agricultural extension.” Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene. 12(1).

Guthman, Julie and Madeleine Fairbairn. 2023. “Decoupling from land or extending the view: The divergent spatial imaginaries of agri-food tech.” Geographical Review. 115(1-2): 35-48.

Fairbairn, Madeleine and Zenia Kish. 2023. “Setting data free: The politics of open data for food and agriculture.” New Media & Society. 25(8), 1935-1959.

Fairbairn, Madeleine, Zenia Kish, and Julie Guthman. 2022. "Pitching agri-food tech: Performativity and non-disruptive disruption in Silicon Valley." Journal of Cultural Economy. Online First.

Reisman, Emily and Madeleine Fairbairn. 2020. "Agri-food systems and the anthropocene." Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 11(3): 687-697.

Fairbairn, Madeleine, James LaChance, Kathryn De Master, and Loka Ashwood. 2020. “In vino veritas, in aqua lucrum: Farmland investment, environmental uncertainty, and groundwater access in California’s Cuyama Valley.” Agriculture and Human Values. 38:285-299.

Ashwood, Loka, John Canfield, Madeleine Fairbairn, and Kathryn De Master. 2020. “What owns the land: The corporate organization of farmland investment.” Journal of Peasant Studies. 49(2): 233-262.

Egerer, Monika and Madeleine Fairbairn. 2018. "Gated gardens: Effects of urbanization on community formation and commons management in community gardens." Geoforum 96: 61-69.

Kish, Zenia and Madeleine Fairbairn. 2018. "Investing for profit, investing for impact: Moral performances in agricultural investment projects." Environment and Planning A. 50(3): 569-588. 

Fairbairn, Madeleine. 2015 “Foreignization, financialization, and land grab regulation.” Journal of Agrarian Change. 15(4): 581-591.

Fairbairn, Madeleine. 2014 “‘Like gold with yield’: Evolving intersections between farmland and finance.” Journal of Peasant Studies. 41(5): 777-795.

Fairbairn, Madeleine, Jonathan Fox, S. Ryan Isakson, Michael Levien, Nancy Peluso, Shahra Razavi, Ian Scoones, and K. Sivaramakrishnan. 2014. “Global agrarian transformations: New directions in agrarian political economy.” (Editorial introduction to special issue.) Journal of Peasant Studies. 41(5): 777-795.

Fairbairn, Madeleine. 2013. “Indirect dispossession: Domestic power imbalances and foreign access to land in Mozambique.” Development and Change. 44(2): 335-356.

Fairbairn, Madeleine. 2012. “Framing transformation: The counter-hegemonic potential of food sovereignty in the U.S. context.” Agriculture and Human Values. 29(2): 217-230.