ABSTRACT
This chapter elaborates on possibilities for an “engaged research” agenda in critical resource geography of industrial agriculture. Drawing on relational and feminist insights, I offer two major suggestions. First, an engaged research agenda in critical resource geography will benefit from a relational view that forefronts the complex relations and interdependencies between firms and smallholders. Second, feminist methodological insights that highlight researcher power, privilege, and positionality vis-à-vis smallholder and firm dynamics enable engaged research that is attuned to local-level processes and interests. These insights emerge from my research on the politics of extraction and smallholder-company relations in Ecuador's palm oil industry but share dynamics commonly found in other resource sectors as well. Together, the abovementioned insights can assist critical resource geographers in thinking about, and through, the instabilities of firm-community relations and assist researchers as they navigate relationships in order to pursue research with transformational potential and meaningful impact.
