Paper short abstract:

This participation explores biodynamic wine-crafting in Switzerland as low-tech, DIY and enacting a specific "sentient ecology". Initially supported by esoteric views, biodynamic wine-crafting illustrates how spiritual references and DIY cultures intersect and "popularizes" in post-secular Europe.

Paper long abstract:

For over twenty years, an esoterically-driven and practitioner-based agronomy has known increased interest in the Swiss vineyards. Following the overall guidelines of the "organic" farming movements (Barton 2018), a professional segment of the wine-crafting population - often most renowned ones - are also experimenting with agronomical practices and know-hows initially inspired by Rudolf Steiner's virtuosi cosmology (Cf. Anthroposophy). Being overall distant from the anthroposophical stakeholders of biodynamics, Swiss wine-crafters nonetheless engage as to "care" over their soils and plants with alchemical preparations, local herbal teas and holistic apprehensions of "nature" as a self-resilient and self-helping entity. In this participation, out of a three years ethnographic fieldwork (2017-2019), I argue that one of the numerous explanations of the expansion of this esoterically-inspired agronomy does not imply a so-called "religious/spiritual revival" among the Swiss wine-crafting population. On the contrary, more embedded analyses over what practising biodynamics pragmatically imply for wine-crafters are to be thought-over. Considering biodynamic wine-crafting as a low-tech, do-it-yourself and enacting a specific "sentient ecology" (Ingold 2000 : 5), this participation explores how Swiss wine-crafters contrasts secular, high-tech and expert-based approaches to "conventional" wine-crafting. I then link it theoretically to "post-secular" theories (Habermas 2008) conceiving how in Western Europe, religious/spiritual dimensions tend not to oppose secular ones anymore, but are rather conceived as blending into "popular cultures" (Knoblauch 2008). Marked by wine-crafters' call over "self-expression" and "authenticity" (Lindholm 2013), the case-study of biodynamic wine-crafting illustrates profound socio-cultural transformations at stake in western European so-called "advanced industrial societies" (Beckford 2003).