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Contribution short abstract

Global bioeconomy agendas often overlook communities and their interests. This paper contributes to reimagining development debates by examining sociobioeconomy as a site where Global South agency, ecological futures, and sustainability governance paradigms are renegotiated.

Contribution long abstract

Recent sustainability and development agendas globally have increasingly adopted the concept of bioeconomy, often without clear definitions or meaningful involvement of the communities whose territories and knowledge they claim to value. Sociobioeconomy has emerged as a key pillar in Brazil’s development and climate strategies, presented as a pathway to reconcile conservation, economic development, and social inclusion, especially in biodiverse territories. This agenda is promoted as a more inclusive model grounded in sociobiodiversity and traditional livelihoods. Against this background, this paper examines the discursive struggles surrounding the construction and promotion of sociobioeconomy in Brazil and its projection into global sustainability politics.

It argues that sociobioeconomy operates as a contested arena where state actors, corporations, social movements, and traditional and Indigenous communities negotiate models of development, territorial control, and knowledge hierarchies.

Drawing on critical development studies, political ecology, and international political economy, the study combines document and discourse analysis of national policy frameworks, diplomatic statements, and international interventions with secondary literature and exploratory interviews. It identifies how sociobioeconomy is mobilised in Brazilian development strategies and how it “travels” into multilateral negotiations, South–South cooperation, and green finance agendas. Moreover, it considers the struggles for the adoption of such an agenda based on local territories in a context of power asymmetries, the return of unilateralism, and global disputes.

The paper contributes to debates on reimagining development by examining sociobioeconomy as a site where Global South agency, ecological futures, and development and sustainability governance paradigms are renegotiated.