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Paper short abstract:

Concepts such as bioeconomy have power to steer societal development. In the Finnish context, bioeconomy is simultaneously cutting edge and centuries old. In this paper we study the framings, ontologies and uses of the bioeconomy concept, and ask what implications these have in the society.

Paper long abstract:

Various EU- and national policies are increasingly stressing the importance of establishing paths towards sustainable modes of production and consumption. As part of the circular economy approach, bioeconomy has been recognized to be one mode of meeting the rising sustainability challenges. The core of bioeconomy in Finland are the technologies and resources related to forests. Bioeconomy as such is therefore nothing particularly new as the Finnish national economy has been more or less based on the use of forests for centuries (Siiskonen 2007). Science works through concepts, concepts are made of words and words do things, they possess power. Some concepts with high penetration rate have the power to change real-life processes and eventually lead to a paradigm shift. It is therefore of crucial importance how we use concepts such as bioeconomy. The application of bioeconomy as a political buzz-word has been criticized of offering a top-down technical solution and holding also properties that might endanger the sustainable use natural of resources (McCormick & Kautto 2013). On the other hand, due to the ambiguousness of the concept, bioeconomy possess interpretative flexibility in ways that can be utilized to the specific needs of diverse actors and objectives (Star & Griesemer 1989). In this paper we analyze the ways bioeconomy is framed among the different actors in Finnish policy context, what are the ontologies and presumptions when the concept is used, and ask what implications the uses of the concept might result in.