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- Convenors:
-
Pieter Lagerwaard
(University of Amsterdam)
Jenske Bal (Liege University)
Send message to Convenors
- Chairs:
-
Pieter Lagerwaard
(University of Amsterdam)
Jenske Bal (Liege University)
- Discussants:
-
Pieter Lagerwaard
(University of Amsterdam)
Adam Searle (University of Nottingham)
- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
This panel explores how biodiversity is made and unmade in agricultural infrastructures. It invites contributions that explore how (non)human actors stabilize, make possible, or disrupt an infrastructure; the (im)mobilities of moving through it; and how we can understand the political stakes.
Long Abstract:
Increasing intensification of agriculture has, directly and indirectly, caused a higher risk of zoonosis, genetic diseases, deforestation, green deserts, and global warming. To counter these challenges, scientists, farmers, governments, and NGOs worldwide are working on (re)constructing infrastructures for food production, in which biodiversity and nature feature prominently. In this panel, we want to explore how biodiversity is made and unmade in the context of agricultural infrastructures.
The focus on infrastructures enables us to move away from reduced and static understandings of biodiversity. Rather than defining what biodiversity exactly is or how we as (social) scientists can or should understand it, we are interested in the multivarious ways in which it is (un)made and done by the actors themselves, in practice, using different techniques, definitions, quantifications, and technologies.
Over the last decades, STS scholars have started to pay (ethnographic) attention to infrastructures, and have shown that infrastructures are relational, political, and mediate social practice (Star, 1999; Larkin, 2013; Nieuwohner, 2015). Infrastructures are dynamic and rely on (in)visible labour for their maintenance and repair (Denis & Pontille, 2019). More recently, scholars have criticized the anthropocentric perspective on infrastructures in STS and have suggested exploring how more-than-humans become part of or shape infrastructures (Barua, 2021; Morita, 2016; Kanoi et al., 2022).
We embrace this critique and invite contributions that investigate how humans, more-than-humans and technologies take part in these infrastructures, and how their practice shapes how biodiversity or nature is done in the context of agriculture. We want to explore how (non)human actors stabilize, make possible, or disrupt an infrastructure; the ways in which infrastructures might relate or conflict; the (im)mobilities of moving through the infrastructure; the practices that are excluded; and how we can understand and recognize the political stakes that are at play, also those of non-humans.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Eleonora Dallagiacoma (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)
Long abstract:
Starting from the European regulation, the research focuses on the actors involved, the network nodes activated in the construction of agricultural infrastructures. The research project aims to critically and hermeneutically reconstruct the international legislative process (between epistemology, law, and policy) that led to the drafting and subsequent approval by the European Parliament of the Nature Restoration Law and its related annexes. The link between ecosystem regeneration, biodiversity and agriculture is very close. Among the different types of ecosystems highlighted by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, farmlands play a central role. Meanwhile Agriculture, forestry and fishing are all sectors that depend on the good state of natural ecosystems. In light of the reflections that will emerge, the research project sets the following goals: (1) understanding the imaginaries, scenarios that constitute the assumptions behind the act; (2) revealing the main ecological vision behind; (3) deepening how biodiversity is co-created inside the regulation process; (4) analyzing the form chosen for communication; (5) understanding what role citizen science, traditional knowledge has played; (6) identifying key stakeholders. In the path followed by European Union in addressing the current challenges of ecosystem restoration, the level of complexity is high. Within this systemic complexity the roles of science, policy and citizenship are intertwined. A thorough analysis of these dynamics (made through the lense of infrastructures conceptual framework) may prove to be a valuable key.
Sebastian Zarate (North Carolina State University)
Long abstract:
Andean potato collections began before the foundation of the International Potato Center (CIP) in Peru. Before joining CIP, Peruvian scientists, such as Carlos Ochoa, embarked on a journey filled with passion for potato conservation. Today, CIP is recognized as the largest in vitro gene bank, housing one of the most extensive herbarium collections and prominent plant cryopreservation programs. After potato collections were stored in CIP’s Gene Bank, CIP’s global presence increased, primarily in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. CIP is part of CGIAR, a global partnership of research centers such as IRRI (rice), CYMMYT (maize), CIAT (tropical agriculture), ILRI (livestock), among other research centers (IARCs). As CGIAR and its partners introduced social goals to its network inspired by the sustainable development goals (SDGs), it became challenging to repurpose data infrastructures and protocols such as distribution, safety backups and data management tasks. Moreover, departments such as Social and Nutritional Sciences implemented strategies to engage farmers in the potato value chain. This project aims to explore current organizational shifts as well as emerging tensions between CIP and its partners in topics such as germplasm distribution, relevance of local knowledge, biodiversity loss, and value chain integration.
Erik Aarden (Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt) Judith Scherzer (Alpen Adria Universität)
Short abstract:
We explore the paradoxical relation between biodiversity and agriculture by studying ecosystem and species monitoring in an Austrian national park. We show how monitoring conjures up multiple relations that enact an infrastructure for preserving both nonhuman and human lifeforms.
Long abstract:
The Neusiedler See-Seewinkel National Park on the Austrian-Hungarian border was established in 1993 to preserve a variety of ecosystems and the species inhabiting them. Key among those are high salinity lakes where various species of waders breed and many more bird species rest during migration. Both these lakes and other ecosystems were formed in interaction with human land-use over centuries but are currently considered to be threatened – inter alia – by agricultural activity in the surrounding region. The national park thereby provides a particular illustration of the paradoxical notion that agriculture can be both enabling for and threatening to biodiversity. To explore how this paradox is encountered in biodiversity conservation, we draw from ethnographic work on various monitoring activities within the Neusiedler See-Seewinkel National Park – including monitoring of the lakes and various bird species. We attend to monitorings as knowledge infrastructures that conjure up multiple relations between biodiversity and agriculture in the naturecultural space of the National Park. We argue that these relations get articulated across (at least) three layers of monitoring practice, including (1) the legal and material designation of spaces subject to protection; (2) narratives of the consequences of human land use amongst monitoring staff; and (3) the use of monitoring instruments and data as anticipatory resources for conservation. Through these institutional, narrative, and practical layers of ‘knowing’ the national park, we observe how monitoring enacts an infrastructure for biodiversity conservation that weaves together the preservation of various forms of nonhuman and human life.
Jenske Bal (Liege University)
Long abstract:
Most of the Netherlands’ land is dedicated to highly productive agricultural land. Researchers note (Sanders et al. 2019) that the intensification of agricultural production in recent decades has led to a decrease in biodiversity. Amidst concerns about the environmental effects of livestock farming, intensive cattle farming has become increasingly contentious. Based on ethnographic research with a group of researchers in the field of breeding and genetics, and with farmers that perceive themselves as ‘agroecological’, this paper focuses on the attempt to shift to a more sustainable, circular, and ecological way of farming. Knowledge about metabolic relations within agroecological farming is still lacking and so the farmers and researchers experiment with how to (re)make biodiversity within agricultural infrastructures, and how to take care of the animals and their lands. They for example are getting rid of pesticides, fertilizers, concentrated feed, and antibiotics, and are planting vegetation on the land to stimulate biodiversity. Furthermore, they seek animals attuned to these farming practices, especially by choosing ‘double purpose’ breeds. To ensure that they can continue farming financially, they are also experimenting with novel economic models for farming. Next to exploring these experimental practices, this paper also analyses varying ways in which the farmers and researchers aim to include ‘nature’ or ‘biodiversity’ in farming practices, and how they see the future of cows within these systems.
Hanah Sung (Center for Anthropocene Studies, KAIST)
Long abstract:
This paper explores the citizen science of biodiversity monitoring in rice fields and its onto-political implications for the future of agriculture in South Korea. For the past half century, rice fields have been considered part of the food production system in South Korean agriculture. However, at the 10th meeting of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands held in South Korea in 2008, rice paddies were acknowledged as wetland ecosystems supporting a wide range of species. Unlike some Western countries, which recognize rice paddies as a source of methane gas, South Korean rice paddy conservationists see them as refuges for wild birds, amphibians, reptiles, and aquatic insects, especially given the drastic decline of natural wetlands in the country.
This paper conducted participatory observation and interviews with the Non-Sal-Lim Social Cooperative, a science-based conservation group focused on paddy fields. Based on the results, this study argues that biodiversity monitoring is 'an art of attentiveness (Tsing, 2015)' for creating new human-nonhuman connections that lead to responsible human intervention. In multi-species studies, scholars have found that coordinating time between different species is key to achieving coexistence in this era of catastrophe (Tsing, 2015; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2015; Gan, 2017). Building on this, this paper explores how humans can be attentive to the time and place of the multi-species world through sensing experiences in the monitoring program. This attempt will demonstrate that a biodiversity monitoring program on paddy fields can serve as a knowledge infrastructure for caring for the multi-species world in the Anthropocene.
Lenn Gorissen (University of Twente) Kornelia Konrad (University of Twente) Esther Turnhout (University of Twente)
Long abstract:
Contemporary research extensively delves into the technical efficacy of innovative sensors in agriculture (Lobsey & Biswas, 2023). However, a gap exists in understanding the nuanced integration of sensors within the broader context of farmers' sensing practices. Drawing on Shove et al. (2012), this study recognises that sensors are not isolated tools but are intricately embedded in practices of sensing, encompassing materials, competences and meanings. Furthermore, it recognises that sensing practices are intertwined with larger farming system strategies, influencing these practices' broader role and meaning.
This research sheds light on the multifaceted role of sensors and sensing within distinct farming system strategies. Employing semi-structured interviews and observations, we engaged farmers in showcasing their sensing practices while physically walking through their farming operations. We included farmers along a spectrum of farming system strategies distinguishing between chemical input-based and biodiversity-based systems, building upon Duru et al. (2015a, b) and Therond et al. (2017).
Our findings reveal how farmers' sensing practices contribute to diverse types of agricultural knowledge, depending on the meanings associated with practices and the competences and materials involved. The identified types of agricultural knowledge can be ideal-typically distinguished in creating oversight (encompassing short-term decision-making and optimisation) and insight (involving strategic decision-making and holistic understanding). While these two types are found to be relevant in both chemical input-based and biodiversity-based systems, we observed differences in the prevalence of these knowledge types in specific systems. These findings provide a nuanced understanding of the type of sensors and sensing practices promoting biodiversity-based farming.
Cormac Cleary (University of Edinburgh)
Long abstract:
This paper offers ethnographic reflections on the biological and cultural politics of crofting, a form of small scale landholding and non-intensive agriculture characteristic of the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Drawing on 20 months of fieldwork on the island of South Uist, I critically examine the ways in which crofting as a form of agriculture becomes enfolded into national infrastructures of biodiversity management as the value of such agricultural forms for biodiversity management becomes more widely recognised. This examination is centred around an interlocutor’s observation that crofters do not farm sheep or cattle as they believe they do, but in fact they are “farming nature”: largely financially dependent on ecological agricultural subsidies, it is argued by my interlocutor that the true product of crofting is the biodiversity that lives in the margins of the croft, not the animals reared for slaughter at its centre. Aside from forming the basis for fragile and internationally important agricultural ecosystems that have long since disappeared elsewhere in the United Kingdom, crofting economies and ecologies also form the basis of the social survival of the Scottish Gaelic language. Largely in retreat elsewhere in Scotland, crofting practices are one major area in which the language is still spoken in an everyday working context. As such crofting becomes an infrastructural site in national imaginaries of the preservation of both biological and cultural diversity. My paper examines the practical implications for those caught up in this complex arena where historically marginalised livelihoods suddenly become infrastructure for the centralised state.
Christopher Henke (Colgate University) Wyatt Galusky (SUNY Morrisville)
Long abstract:
The monarch is a large, colorful, and well known butterfly species in North America, known to many for its presence in backyards and gardens, its ubiquity in advertising and other media, and its migratory behavior, traveling across thousands of miles each year. Children rear monarchs in elementary school as a way to learn about the life cycle, and many North Americans now plant milkweed—which is the only plant that monarch larvae eat—to provide food and habitat for the species. As symbols of ecology, rebirth, and migration, monarch butterflies stand in for human concerns and desires about our place in a complex and ever changing world and our hopes and fears about the future.
We use monarch butterflies as a case study to understand how a species can serve as a potent carrier of meaning for human views about the environment, food systems, and patterns of global change. Following the work of Adloff & Neckel (2019) and other scholars who trace the creation and influence of narratives, we explore stories about the monarch butterfly in two contemporary contexts where the species is a symbol of concern and action over environmental degradation: agricultural biotechnology and the climate crisis. We use data from media content and interviews to support our analysis, arguing that butterflies provide means for a wide range of human actors to both express fear and concern as well as inspire a sense of responsibility and action.
Adloff and Neckel (2019). “Futures of sustainability as modernization, transformation, and control. Sustainability Science.