Format/Structure

A participatory workshop exploring feminist agroecology. We would like to explore equitable research relations, intersectional perspectives on labour and climate, and creative, non‑academic outputs that challenge dominant narratives and build rooted networks of feminist agroecological farmers.

Long Abstract

This workshop invites participants into the feminist agroecological praxis developed within the Horizon Europe SWIFT project, a transdisciplinary and participatory research process co‑created with peasant farmers and civil society organisations in Europe. Grounded in political ecology, the session explores how feminist methodologies can unsettle extractive research norms and cultivate more equitable power dynamics between producers, researchers, and activists. We reflect on practices used in SWIFT - collective inquiry, situated storytelling, and co-design of outputs to examine the richness as well as some of the difficulties related to doing feminist political ecology.

We would like to discuss the co-creation of non‑academic outputs including podcasts, participatory videos, songs, photo‑voice, and advocacy tools. These forms challenge dominant narratives about farming, gender, and labour while opening space for peasant and popular feminist theorising in the European context. Our aim is to explore the ways that these outputs can coexist with, and enrich, academic engagement in political ecology.

Intersectional perspectives guide our exploration of migrant agricultural labour, climate change, and indicators on the “liveability” of agroecological farms. Feminist agroecology offers tools to understand how gendered, racialised, and classed inequalities shape agricultural work and ecological transitions, and how alternative ways of knowing and being can support more just food systems. We would like to conclude the session by collectively imagining next steps: how to nurture “rooted networks” of feminist agroecological farmers and allies across Europe, strengthen solidarities, and deepen participatory feminist research within political ecology. Participants interested in feminist, agroecological, and food sovereignty politics and practices are warmly invited to contribute their experiences and visions.