Melanie Sommerville

I joined Noragric as a Tenure Track Postdoctoral Fellow in September 2020. I completed my PhD in Human Geography at the University of British Columbia and held a Faculty of Arts and Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto prior to coming to NMBU.

My research spans three thematic areas. First, I explore processes of agrarian transition and rural development, both historically and during the contemporary period. Second, I examine the capacity of finance, in both its high and everyday forms, to catalyse progressive social and environmental change or, less hopefully, to lock in pre-existing patterns of inequality and degradation. Third, I investigate how contemporary liberal democracies address histories of colonialism, slavery, and racialisation, focusing in particular on reconciliation, land restitution, and reparations processes.

While much of my empirical work to date has been undertaken in Canada (my birthplace) and South Africa, my fascination with relational methodologies means that other geographic locations similarly feature in my reading, thinking, and teaching.   

Building on work completed during my PhD, I continue to explore the formation that I call ‘reparative capitalism,’ whereby capital incorporates critiques about its social and ecological past as new sites of elite accumulation.

I am also working to develop three new projects in South Africa, focused on the economics of the game farming sector, emerging tensions between liberal democratic institutions and traditional authorities in communal areas, and Norwegian investments in large-scale conservation and agriculture projects, respectively.