Judith A. Carney

Carney has made important contributions to human-environmental sciences. Her research shows that rice cultivation in the Southern colonies of North America was incubated by African slaves via an African species of the cultivar. She subsequently demonstrated how enslaved Africans initiated the cultivation in the Americas of other African crops, which served as their survival foods. Carney's earliest innovation was to demonstrate the processes through which gender-naïve development policies served to disempower West African women. By giving monetary value to crops women traditionally grew, the policies led senior male household members to assert control, which weakened women's land rights.