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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:
-
Adam Searle
(University of Nottingham)
Pieter Lagerwaard (University of Amsterdam)
- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
- Location:
- Agora 3, main building
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 17 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam
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 1 Wednesday 17 July, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
Starting from the European regulation (i.e. Nature Restoration Law), the research focuses on the actors involved, the network nodes activated in the construction of agricultural infrastructures, focusing on the co-production process of biodiversity concept.
Paper 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.
Paper 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.
Paper 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.
Paper short abstract:
This article explores how cattle farming practices are rethought in light of ecological concerns. Based on ethnographic research with agroecological farmers and researchers in the field of cattle genetics and breeding, it analyzes practices of (re)making biodiversity and infrastructures.
Paper 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.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the ongoing revaluation of rice fields as a wetland ecosystem in South Korea. Focusing on biodiversity monitoring on paddy fields by citizen scientists, the paper sheds light on the knowledge infrastructure that cultivates rice fields as habitats for multi-species worlds.
Paper 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.
Paper short abstract:
The research explores how sensors in agriculture are embedded in farmers' sensing practices, shedding light on the nuanced contributions to different types of agricultural knowledge and highlighting the role of sensors and sensing in promoting biodiversity-based farming system strategies.
Paper 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.
Paper short abstract:
We use monarch butterflies to understand how a species can serve as a carrier of meaning for human views about the environment, food systems, and patterns of global change. Monarch butterflies stand in for human concerns and desires about our place in a complex and ever changing world.
Paper 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.
Paper short abstract:
This contribution studies the challenges and opportunities of novel citizen initiatives that aim to (re)construct biodiverse food infrastructures. In particular, it focusses on a ‘living laboratory’ where proxy infrastructures, their feasibility and scalability, are tested in practice.
Paper long abstract:
The current agricultural crisis in the Netherlands is a wicked problem, encompassing concerns about food production, land use, biodiversity, water quality, and economic viability. It is in this context, that new citizen initiatives concerning food production have emerged. Citizen initiatives such as Land van Ons, Aardpeer, and Herenboeren have taken matters into their own hands by aiming to reconstruct the agricultural infrastructure: from land ownership, to food production, to its distribution. However, the (re)construction of agricultural infrastructures poses substantial challenges. There are seemingly small but fundamental concerns such as what biodiversity actually means, to large-scale infrastructural questions concerning how food should be distributed without relying on existing wholesalers and supermarkets.
This contribution studies the challenges, dilemmas, and opportunities of these citizen initiatives and their ambition to (re)construct novel biodiverse food infrastructures. In particular, it focuses on a 'living laboratory' where proxy infrastructures, their feasibility, and scalability, are tested in earthly practice. I am interested in how small-scale experiments, such as the growing of risotto rice, cranberries, and the creation of a 'food swamp,' serve as proxies or roadmaps for future large-scale infrastructures. I am interested in the techno-scientific solutions this living laboratory procures, involving novel methods and technologies of farming and food production that construct in practice what ‘good’ and ‘bad’ biodiversity is.