Members of IfA recently presented at a political ecology conference in Lund, Sweden, adding an agroecological perspective to the rich discussions and debates of the event and holding up our own ideas to a political ecological lens. Attending conferences like these allows us to engage with and build understanding among like-minded disciplines.
POLLEN (Political Ecology Network) is a global network of researchers, groups, projects, and networks, organized around geographical ‘nodes’. The network uses conferences as a point of encounter between diverse traditions and to advance political ecology research and social movements.
Read on for a quick recap of the inspiring presentations and discussions from the conference and the thematic areas in which these fields mutually reinforce one another.
Left: This year, the POLLEN was held at Lund University, one of the oldest public universities in Northern Europe. Center: The IfA team enjoying some delicious Danish smørrebrød (open faced sandwiches) at a market in Copenhagen before the conference began. Right: Andrew giving a talk on financing transformative work in Agroecology.
Presentations
🎤 Janica’s Presentation: Janica explored how agroecology and food sovereignty (FS) offer transformative solutions to environmental and socio-economic crises in our food systems. She emphasized the importance of understanding farmers’ definitions of FS in different contexts, highlighting a case study from smallholder coffee farmers in Chiapas, Mexico. Through focus groups and surveys, these farmers defined their FS and contrasted it with their actual food production and consumption practices, demonstrating principles of epistemic justice.
🎤 Andrew’s Presentation: Andrew briefly described research exploring practitioner ideas of how donor support for agroecological transformations would need to look qualitatively different from the conventional mechanisms of resourcing agricultural and rural development. This research draws heavily on recent efforts to address the relatively meager investments in agroecology on the global stage despite its popularity in the rhetoric of international institutions. And it’s informed by the experience and insights of donors and grantees on how grant-making protocols can incorporate decolonial principles of justice and plurality.
🎤 Roundtable with Janica, Martha, Katie, and Michelle: The roundtable delved into how political ecology can deepen the impact of agroecology across four dimensions: soil health, agroforestry, agricultural diversification, and education. They discussed coalition building, integrating diverse types of knowledge, and tackling tensions in research. Central themes included epistemic justice, pluralism, social-ecological sufficiency, redistribution of natural resources, and the role of mental models in identifying complementary approaches to radical systems change.
Left: Lund cathedral. Right: Andrew, Janica, and Katie waiting for a bus in Lund (public transportation is great!).
Key Themes
We identified some key themes connecting Political Ecology and Agroecology:
Food Sovereignty: Empowering communities to define their food systems and ensuring sustainable and culturally appropriate food production. Through dialogues and encounters at the conference, diverse global perspectives on food sovereignty were shared, enriching collective understanding and practice.
Right to Food: Advocating for the fundamental human right to access nutritious food. Engaging with critical social scientists deepened our understanding of the connections between food rights and broader social justice issues.
Justice: Promoting social, economic, and environmental justice within food systems. The conference facilitated transdisciplinary dialogues that bridged the gaps between academia, activism, and art, advancing collective commitments to justice.
Pluriverse: Recognizing and respecting diverse ways of knowing and being in agroecological practices. POLLEN 2024 provided a platform for pluralizing knowledge, challenging dominant paradigms, and fostering intercultural and transnational solidarities.
Decoloniality: Challenging and dismantling colonial legacies in agricultural systems and funding models. The conference provided space to unpack entangled inequalities and explore non-dominant epistemologies, moving towards decolonial futures based on mutualism and cooperation.
Our lasting impression? We’re more excited than before to continue to dialogue with political ecology across the geographies and societal boundaries in which agroecology is taking hold. We’re also grateful for the ways in which this encounter deepens the IfA’s capacity to promote transdisciplinarity, plurality and critical perspectives through its research and education.
After leaving the conference in Lund, the team took some time to visit Finland and the stomping grounds of our dear colleague Janica and to lend a brief hand on the farm that has been in her family for many generations. More on that to come in our next post.
Left: Exploring Lund. Right: One of the many interesting sessions at the conference.
Left: Janica and Diana (from Stockholm Resilience Center) sharing insights from their work with Mexican coffee farmers. Right: Michelle, Janica, Martha, and Katie before their roundtable discussion.