Profile

Areas of expertise

• Development studies
• Technology and agrarian change
• Environment and development
• Rural politics
• Right-wing populism in rural Europe

Academic biography

I joined the academic staff at York in 2012 from the University of Sussex where I was a researcher with the STEPS centre. Prior to that I had worked as an international development practitioner and consultant for many years. I was Programme Director of the department’s online MPA International Development between 2014 and 2017 and Senior Research Fellow on the Social Transformative Research Informing Processes of Environmental Science (STRIPES) project between 2018 and 2020. I am a member of the York Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre (IGDC) and the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI)-Europe scholar-activist network; and on the Academic Advisory Group of the campaign group Another Europe is Possible. 

My research centres on critical examination of global development imaginaries, interventions and institutions; with a particular focus on the role of large philanthropic foundations. Much of this work has focused on efforts to bring about agrarian modernisation in countries in the Global South as part of what Raj Patel has called the ‘long’ Green Revolution. More recently my research interests have extended to rural politics in Europe, and, in particular, the rise of right-wing populism in rural Europe.

Research

My research interests fall into two main areas: 

• Political economy of international development: Bridging the fields of development studies and science & technology studies (STS) my research critically examines decision making in globalised networks formed around technocratic visions of ‘development’. The disproportionate influence of philanthropic foundations has been an ongoing theme. Past projects have studied interventions in smallholder farming, international crop research, nutrition, pastoralism, bioenergy, and digital financial inclusion (‘fintech’); and involved fieldwork in the Philippines, Kenya, Brazil and the United States. This work has been published in New Political Economy, Economy and Society, Third World Quarterly, Journal of Peasant Studies, Climatic Change, Sociologia Ruralis, and East Asian Science, Technology and Society (EASTS); and the monograph Rice Biofortification: Lessons for Global Science and Development (Earthscan 2010).

• Right wing populism in rural Europe: I belong to the Emancipatory Rural Populism Initiative (ERPI)-Europe scholar-activist network which explores conditions for and manifestations of support for right-wing populism in different country contexts across rural Europe. My contributions to this body of work have included an analysis of the role of ‘politics of the rural’, to use Woods’ (2005) term, in generating support for Brexit. This work has been published in a Special Issue of Socialogia Ruralis (60(4), October 2020) and in the Journal of Peasant Studies.

Recent publications

Selected publications

Kumar, A. and Brooks, S. (accepted 2020) Bridges, platforms and satellites: theorizing the power of global philanthropy in international development, Economy and Society, ISSN 0308-5147 (In Press).

Mamonova, N., Franquesa, J, & Brooks, S. (2020) ‘Actually Existing’ Right-Wing Populism in Rural Europe: Insights from Eastern Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and Ukraine, Journal of Peasant Studies, doi: 10.1080/03066150.2020.1830767.

Brooks, S. (2020) Brexit and the politics of the rural, Sociologia Ruralis, 60(4) 790-809.

Brooks, S. (2018) Behavioural Nudges: Mildly Paternalistic or a Threat to Economic Justice for the Poor? Next Billion (18 May 2018).

Gabor, D. and Brooks, S. (2017) The digital revolution in financial inclusion: international development in the fintech era, New Political Economy, 22(4) 423-436.

Brooks, S. (2016) Inducing food insecurity: financialisation and development in the post-2015 era. Third World Quarterly, 37(5) 768-780.

Brooks, S. (2016) Private finance and the post-2015 development agenda, Development Finance Agenda, 1(3) 24-27 (January 2016).

Brooks, S. and Roberts, E. (2016) ‘Simultaneous Immersion’: How online postgraduate study contributes to the development of reflective practice among public service practitioners, Interactive Learning Environments, 24(7) 1692-1705.

Brooks, S. (2015) GM crops and the developing world: opposing sides miss the bigger picture, The Conversation (12 November 2015).

Brooks, S. (2014) Enabling Adaptation? Lessons from the new ‘Green Revolution’ in Malawi and Kenya, Climatic Change, 122(1-2) 15-26.

Brooks, S. (2013) Biofortification: lessons from the Golden Rice project, Food Chain, 3(1-2) 77-88.

Brooks, S. (2015) Philanthrocapitalism,  ‘pro-poor’ agricultural biotechnology and development,  in B. Morvaridi (Ed.) New Philanthropy and Social Justice: Debating the conceptual and policy discourse Policy Press: Bristol.

Brooks, S., D. Burges Watson, A. Draper, M. Goodman, H. Kvalvaag and W. Wills (2013) Chewing on Choice, in Abbots, E-J & Lavis, A (Eds.) Why We Eat, How We Eat: Contemporary Encounters Between Foods and Bodies, Farnham: Ashgate.

Krätli, S., Huelsebusch, C., Brooks, S. and Kaufmann, B. (2013) Pastoralism: a critical asset for food security under global climate change, Animal Frontiers, 3(1) 42-50.

Brooks, S. (2013) Investing in Food Security? Philanthrocapitalism, Biotechnology and Development (November 1, 2013). SPRU Working Paper Series (SWPS) 2013-12.

Brooks, S. and Johnson-Beebout, S.E. (2012) Contestation as continuity? Biofortification research and the CGIAR. In In Sumberg, J. and Thompson, J. (Eds.) Contested Agronomy: Agricultural Research in a Changing World. Abingdon: Routledge (pp. 86-101). Free to download from Scoones, I. (2017, Ed.) FreeBook: Pathways to Sustainable Agriculture, Abingdon: Routledge (pp. 83-101).

Brooks, S. and Loevinsohn, M.E. (2011) Shaping Agricultural Innovation Systems Responsive to Food Insecurity and Climate Change, Natural Resources Forum, 5(3) 185-200.

Brooks, S. (2011) ‘Is International Agricultural Research a Global Public Good? The Case of Rice Biofortification’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 38(1) 67-80.

Brooks, S. (2011) ‘Living with Materiality or Confronting Asian Diversity? The Case of Iron-Biofortified Rice Research in the Philippines’, East Asian Science, Technology and Society (EASTS), 5(2) 173–188.

Brooks, S. (2010) Rice Biofortification: Lessons for Global Science and Development. London: Earthscan.

Brooks, S., Thompson J., Odame H., Kibaara B., Nderitu S., Karin F. and Millstone, E. (2009) Environmental Change and Maize Innovation in Kenya: Exploring Pathways in and out of Maize, STEPS Working Paper 36, Brighton: STEPS Centre.

Brooks, S., Leach M., Lucas, H. and Millstone, E. (2009) Silver Bullets, Grand Challenges and the New Philanthropy, STEPS Working Paper 24, Brighton: STEPS Centre.

Brooks, S. (2008) Global Science, Public Goods? Tracing International Science Policy Processes in Rice Biofortification, PhD Thesis, Brighton: University of Sussex.

Brooks, S. (2005) ‘Biotechnology and the Politics of Truth: From the Green Revolution to an Evergreen Revolution’, Sociologia Ruralis, 45(4) 360-379.

Brooks, S. (1996) Small Business Development in Papua New Guinea: Lessons, Department of Environment and Conservation/United Nations Development Programme, OPS-PNG/93/G31.