@joevarock

anthropologist thinking about food & agriculture, changing climates, and the politics of development

 Brooklyn, NY
joevarock.com
Joined July 2009
  • Tweets20.8K
  • Following1.5K
  • Followers1.9K
1.6KMedia
I've started the (likely slow) transition over to BlueSky. Same handle there. Nothing can replace the Twitter of Old, but this new iteration isn't it.
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I'm excited to share that my book, "We are not starving: The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in Ghana," is now available open-access! doi.org/10.14321/jsr.wans.09…

We Are Not Starving: The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in Ghana

This critical text is a timely ethnography of how global powers, local resistance, and capital flows are shaping contemporary African foodways. Ghana was one of the first countries targeted by a...

fulcrum.org
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U.S. President Donald Trump has fired all 24 members of the National Science Board, the body that oversees the National Science Foundation. Many science advocates see it as the latest step by his administration to erode—some would say destroy—the independence of the 76-year-old research agency. scim.ag/4eGM0YS

Trump fires every member of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s governing body

Dismissal of the National Science Board is widely seen as latest move to erase NSF’s independence

science.org
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3) Rock, Joeva Sean. 2026. "Stewardship and the Difficulty of Shared Responsibility." Theorizing the Contemporary, Fieldsights, April 7. culanth.org/fieldsights/stew…

Stewardship and the Difficulty of Shared Responsibility

On July 25, 2024, farmers, scientists, and officials gathered in Nyankpala, Ghana, to debut Songotra T, a genetically modified cowpea. For over a...

culanth.org
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📣New series alert! They explore how humans care for and control plants, questioning responsibility in these relationships. Through case studies, they show how human-plant interactions shape ecological, cultural, and political dynamics. Find them⬇️ culanth.org/fieldsights/seri…

Plant Responsability and the Politics of Vegetal Care

The concept of care has become central to work on multispecies relations. In scholarship with vegetal beings, care sometimes involves a situated ...

culanth.org
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U.S. Considers Withholding H.I.V. Aid Unless Zambia Expands Minerals Access nytimes.com/2026/03/16/healt…

U.S. Considers Withholding H.I.V. Aid Unless Zambia Expands Minerals Access

A draft State Department memo outlines ways the Trump administration may ratchet up pressure on the African country by ending health support “on a massive scale.”

nytimes.com
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Joeva Rock retweeted
Max Kozlov@maxdkozlovApr 4
BREAKING: In response to huge cuts in Trump's budget request, NSF is closing its social sciences directorate. Staff will be transferred elsewhere in NSF, and "grants that align with Administration priorities" will be kept. W/ @dangaristo for @Nature nature.com/articles/d41586-0…
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Happy to be quoted in a @LeMonde_Afrique article on Ghana's ambitious plan to reduce pasta imports (while still relying on wheat imports): lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2…

Au Ghana, la quête de souveraineté alimentaire passe par les pâtes

Le pays est très dépendant des importations pour de nombreux produits de base. Depuis son retour à la présidence, en janvier 2025, John Dramani Mahama a lancé plusieurs programmes de soutien à...

lemonde.fr
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Joeva Rock retweeted
Antipode@antipodeonlineMar 4
Call for applications -- Antipode Foundation "Right to the Discipline" grants -- due date 10 April 2026 -- funding available for imaginative, daring, and unruly scholarship and praxis, including scholar-activism, workshops, and much more antipodeonline.org/a-right-t…

“Right to the Discipline” grants

Call for Proposals, November 2025 Last year we received 169 strong applications with a success rate of 5.9%. We anticipate funding a similar number of 10-12 grants in the next application year....

antipodeonline.org
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Blizzard scenes from Prospect Park
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“Crispr was the AI of 2018 ...There’s huge expectations. Then it takes longer and costs more money.” forbesafrica.com/current-aff…

Gene Editing Has Struggled To Go Commercial. This Nobel Laureate Has A $1 Billion Plan To Fix That.

Crispr’s ability to cut genetic code like scissors has just started to turn into medicines. Now, gene editing pioneer Jennifer Doudna wants to build an entire ecosystem to bring these treatments...

forbesafrica.com
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For scholars working at the intersection of food, environment and health, this is a great opportunity. Montpellier is a major hub in France for Global South research. I received this fellowship in 2021 and had a wonderful experience makit.edu.umontpellier.fr/en…
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'Just holding a Doritos bag': Student handcuffed after AI system mistook bag of chips for weapon wbaltv.com/article/student-h…

AI software mistakes high school student's bag of chips for a weapon

Taki Allen was sitting outside Kenwood High School with friends, eating a bag of chips after football practice on Monday. Around 20 minutes later, cops showed up with guns, walking toward Allen....

wbaltv.com
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KALRO has applied to commercialize genetically modified cassava in Kenya businessdailyafrica.com/bd/m…

Kenya set for mass rollout of GM cassava in 18 counties

Kalro seeks approval to commercialise Kenya’s first genetically modified cassava.

businessdailyafrica.com
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Judge says U.S. trying to do "end-run" around legal protections with deportations to Ghana cbsnews.com/news/judge-says-…

Judge says U.S. trying to do "end-run" around legal protections with deportations to Ghana

Earlier this month, the U.S. deported a group of non-Ghanaian nationals to Ghana, including deportees from Gambia and Nigeria.

cbsnews.com
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Ghana has agreed to accept West African nationals deported from the United States and 14 have already arrived in the country, President John Dramani Mahama told reporters late Wednesday. reuters.com/world/africa/gha…

Ghana agrees to accept West Africans deported from US, president says

Ghana has agreed to accept West African nationals deported from the United States and 14 have already arrived in the country, President John Dramani Mahama told reporters late Wednesday.

reuters.com
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Burkina Faso suspends Target Malaria bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Burkina Faso Halts Gates Foundation-Backed Anti-Malaria Project

Burkina Faso suspended a Gates Foundation-funded research program aimed at stopping the spread of malaria, one of the biggest killers in Africa, after the initiative drew criticism from anti-Western...

bloomberg.com
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After a seven-year hiatus, the Department of Anthropology at American University is excited to announce that the Public Anthropology Conference is back! Call for Papers: pubanthcon.com/call-for-part… Registration: pubanthcon.com/registration Deadline: Sept. 8th 2025.
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The Giving Pledge after 15 years: Only 9 of the 256 billionaires actually followed through on giving away half their wealth fortune.com/2025/08/07/bill-…

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's Giving Pledge after 15 years: Only 9 of the 256 billionaires...

The Institute for Policy Studies’ report “The Giving Pledge at 15” finds that the initiative remains mostly unfulfilled.

fortune.com
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More very bad news for researchers in the US. New executive order: ▪️pauses new federal funding ▪️places political appointees at federal agencies ▪️requires grants to "advance the President’s policy priorities" ▪️allows cancelation of active grants arstechnica.com/science/2025…

New executive order puts all grants under political control

All new funding on hold until Trump administration can cancel any previously funded grants.

arstechnica.com
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Great insight from @marionnestle on why moving the USDA out of Washington DC is bad for the agency and those it serves: foodpolitics.com/2025/07/the…

The proposed destruction of the USDA: it's deja vu all over again. - Food Politics by Marion Nestle

The USDA has just announced a plan for reorganization that will move most of the agency out of Washington, DC, as flagrant an act of self-destruction as can be imagined.

foodpolitics.com
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