Short Abstract:

This panel discusses alternatives to the mainstream bioeconomy narrative. Its core idea -- an economy that respects environmental limits and provides enough resources for a fulfilling life -- contains space for a plurality of interpretations, which we seek to showcase with a view from Africa.

Long Abstract:

The policy field of "bioeconomy" has emerged in the Global North as an attempt to unify the goals of climate change mitigation and sustaining economic growth. It envisions an economy that deploys only renewable resources. Although policies based on it have been directed at economies of the Global North, it is obvious that a transformation of the resource base from fossils to renewables will have tremendous impacts on economies of the Global South, including land-rich economies in Africa.

Scholars and activists from the Degrowth movement in the Global North have been criticizing the ethical and epistemic presuppositions of the mainstream bioeconomy narrative and its underlying notions of modernity and progress. However, the voices of African stakeholders remain scarce.

This panel intends to present views from Africa on alternatives to the mainstream bioeconomy narrative. Its core idea -- an economy that respects environmental limits and provides enough resources for a fulfilling life -- contains space for a plurality of interpretations for which we use the notion "bio_economy". The goal of the panel is to identify and discuss African variants of this plurality.

Particularly, we invite contributions that present voices from members of social groups in Africa which find themselves at the margins of public or political debates about their conceptions of desirable land-use, agriculture, or other areas relevant for a bioeconomy; their attitudes to agricultural technologies, GMOs, notions of productivity; their conceptions of a fulfilling life; strategies for politicization of marginalized visions of land-use, agriculture, pastoralism etc.