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Social research in international agricultural R&D: Lessons from the small ruminant CRSP

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Abstract

The uses of the most “social” of the social sciences—sociology and anthropology—in international agricultural research and development (R&D) have often been poorly understood. Drawing upon a decade of work by the Sociology Project of the Small Ruminant Collaborative Research Support Program, this article exemplifies how and where social scientists can and have contributed to major development initiatives, and it illustrates some of the larger lessons to be learned for human values concerns in international agriculture.

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Authors
  1. Constance M. McCorkle
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  2. Michael F. Nolan
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  3. Keith Jamtgaard
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  4. Jere L. Gilles
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Additional information

The authors are all members of the Small Ruminant Collaborative Research Support Program's (SR-CRSP) Sociology Project, housed in the Department of Rural Sociology, University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC), Columbia MO 65211. They represent a core group of social scientists who have worked with the project since its inception. McCorkle is Research Assistant Professor and Project Coordinator. Nolan is Associate Dean of International Agriculture in the UMC College of Agriculture, Professor of Rural Sociology, and Principal Investigator on the project. Associate Professor Gilles is Co-principal Investigator on the project. Jamtgaard served as the project's Resident Scientist in Peru from 1982–1984 and is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Montana State University.

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McCorkle, C.M., Nolan, M.F., Jamtgaard, K. et al. Social research in international agricultural R&D: Lessons from the small ruminant CRSP. Agric Hum Values 6, 42–51 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02217668

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