University of SaskatchewanHARVEST
  • Login
  • Submit Your Work
  • About
    • About HARVEST
    • Guidelines
    • Browse
      • All of HARVEST
      • Communities & Collections
      • By Issue Date
      • Authors
      • Titles
      • Subjects
      • This Collection
      • By Issue Date
      • Authors
      • Titles
      • Subjects
    • My Account
      • Login
      JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.
      View Item 
      • HARVEST
      • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      • View Item
      • HARVEST
      • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      • View Item

      "There is no land suitable for agriculture": progress and agriculture in post-World War II Saskatchewan

      Thumbnail
      View/Open
      McNaughton_Laura_2003_sec.pdf (7.177Mb)
      Date
      2003
      Author
      McNaughton, Laura
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Level
      Masters
      Metadata
      Show full item record
      Abstract
      This thesis is an examination of the relationship between ideology, public policy and environmental reality. This examination is set in the context of post-World War II Saskatchewan and the policies established to accommodate returned veterans and reconstruct the province's society and agricultural economy. Canadians believed that the Allied victory symbolized the rightness of the North American way of life. Canadians also believed that technological innovations achieved during the Second World War would translate into prosperity for the country's citizens. The belief that technology could create prosperity is one that this work calls the ideology of progress. From this ideology of progress grew what political scientist and anthropologist James C. Scott calls high modernist ideology. High modernist ideology was characterized by technocratic planning and organization of society and the economy. The federal Veterans' Land Act and the provincial Carrot River project are policies that can be studied through the framework of high modernist ideology. Both policies involved planning and organization of agriculture as well as government supervision of veterans' farming operations. This thesis argues that policy reflects ideology, often with no regard to environmental factors. The case study of the Carrot River project gives evidence to the fact that planning and organization cannot change the natural environment in which policies function.
      Degree
      Master's (Master's)
      Department
      History
      Program
      History
      Supervisor
      Waiser, Bill
      Committee
      Fairbairn, Brett; Korinek, Valerie
      Copyright Date
      2003
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/etd-05232012-115214
      Collections
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      University of Saskatchewan

      University Library

      The University of Saskatchewan's main campus is situated on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis.

      © University of Saskatchewan
      Contact Us | Disclaimer | Privacy