Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on fruit growers who choose to live with uncertainty. The discussion will outline a world better adapted to the uncertainty generated by the ecological crisis, which is nonetheless intrinsic to living beings; a world in which humans are willing to depend on existing others.

Paper long abstract:

The modernisation of agriculture everywhere has been supported by the desire to ensure yields and reduce uncertainty. Farmers who have not joined this movement often argue that uncertainty is nothing new. They interpret the growing concern of their modern colleagues with ecological crises as a somewhat naive rediscovery of a contingency with which they have learned to cope (as best they could).

This paper focuses on fruit growers who have deliberately made the heteronomous choice to live with uncertainty. Heteronomy refers to action that is influenced by a force outside the individual. Thus, the heteronomous subject accepts to share the power to determine his or her own future with others, whose autonomy she recognises.

To discuss this, I will refer to the cultivation of certain types of vine in France and especially that of the durian in Malaysia. Throughout Malaysia, the custom is never to pick these fruits from the tree to eat them instead to wait for them to fall off by themselves. This choice implies a high but accepted level of uncertainty that conditions all sensitive, technical, economic, aesthetic, and moral relationships with the plants.

The discussion of this case will make it possible to anticipate a world better adapted to the uncertainty that is generated by the ecological crisis, which is nonetheless intrinsic to living beings; a world in which human subjects accept to recognise their dependence on existing others.

Paper short abstract:

Seagrass are both affected by climate change and capable of mitigating its effects. The contribution examines multi-faceted human-seagrass-relations in Mexico and the innovative strategies and practices of marine biologists as they work to stabilize the coast through multispecies interactions.

Paper long abstract:

Many coastal areas around the globe face severe damage. Anthropogenic climate change is a significant contributor to coastal destabilization. In light of these changes, coastal areas have become a focus of scientific investigation in both natural sciences and cultural studies. Researchers increasingly consider the complex interplay of multiple species which contribute to ecosystem stability. Innovative approaches of climate change mitigation are developed world-wide, leading to a variety of perspectives on the future of these unique environments. A species that takes center stage within these dynamics is seagrass, as it is both affected by climate change and capable of mitigating its effects. Seagrasses are, thus, gaining increased recognition as a vital component for coastal stability. My research localizes these dynamics along the Riviera Maya in Mexico, where I conducted ethnographic fieldwork from 2019–2022. My contribution examines human-seagrass-relations and the innovative strategies and practices of marine biologists as they work to stabilize the coast through multispecies interactions. Referring to approaches from the fields of naturescultures and ecologies of repair, the study provides a deeper understanding of the role of non-human actors in coastal stabilization efforts and contributes to ongoing discussions about ecologies of repair in the Anthropocene.

Paper short abstract:

The presentation looks at links between Moon phases and trees based on a corpus of 1,450 texts of Estonian folk beliefs. There is an important part of new data which are connected with agrarian lifestyle, also a data when and how to plant the trees, vegetables etc., or predict the crop.

Paper long abstract:

The presentation looks at links between Moon phases and trees based on a corpus of 1,450 texts of Estonian folk beliefs. As an additional criterion, whether and during which Moon phase the tree was processed, medicine prepared or what else further consideration was taken. The basis of the presentation is a religious corpus of texts (~150,000 texts) entered, from which a sample for this presentation (keywords: folk astronomy and trees) was prepared. There is an important part of data which are connected with agrarian lifestyle, also a new data when and how to plant the trees, vegetables etc., or predict the crop. The digital data corpus received is analyzed more closely, distribution maps and statistics are included. This is primarily data on Estonian religion, parallels are presented sporadically concerning the Baltic tradition.

Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses representations of time in olive cultivation. The rupture of Afrin’s occupation by Turkish-led militias in 2018 is evaluated against earlier changes in cultivation, which are now partly remembered in terms of pre-war continuity.

Paper long abstract:

The occupation of Syria’s Afrin region by Islamist militias under Turkish control in 2018 has brought about far-reaching demographic change. Displacing a large part of the region’s Kurdish population, it brought an influx of settlers opposed to the Asad regime, many of whom have been forcibly displaced themselves.

Before this background, this paper asks how human-olive tree relations in Afrin before 2018 are accounted for today to mark continuity and change. Agriculture, notably olive cultivation, has long provided income and stood for local and even ethnic identities in this region. After 2018, farmers were violently dispossessed by the seizing or “taxing” of the olive harvest and other crops; orchards were damaged by grazing livestock, fruit trees were cut and sold for firewood, or uprooted and removed for infrastructural as well as military projects. Drawing from conversations with (former) residents of the region, visual and textual representations on social media, and observations in Afrin between 1998 and 2011, I ask how previous changes (e.g., agrarian reforms of the 1950s/60s, urbanisation of lifestyles since the 1970s, or export-oriented cultivation of saplings since the early 2000s) are incorporated into representations of pre-war continuity or evaluated as temporal turning points. I demonstrate that, as the short-term profits made by dispossession, looting, or construction in former olive groves are juxtaposed to decades of past care invested in fruit trees and agriculture, representations of the temporalities of olive cultivation in Afrin are deeply political.

Paper short abstract:

This contribution focuses on the intersection between socio-ecological crises and shifting human-olive relations in a Moroccan oasis. It explores how the lived experience of unpredictability can precipitate changes in human-plant dynamics that come to redefine the local agrarian life world.

Paper long abstract:

Dwellers of southeastern Moroccan oases are skilled at living with uncertainty. In these semi-arid lands, human-plant relations are continuously reworked so as to correspond to long-standing climatic unpredictability and emergent socio-ecological pressures. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Skoura oasis, this contribution focuses on the intersection between socio-ecological crises and shifting human-olive relations. Its aim is to explore how the lived experience of increased unpredictability can precipitate changes in human-plant dynamics that come to redefine the local agrarian life world.

Following the ruinous impact of the Bayoud – a disease caused by a soil-borne fungus that depleted North African palm groves – Skoura’s agroecosystem underwent a shift in keystone species, from date palm to olive tree. For most farmers, this entailed relinquishing well-defined historical, affective, and mimetic entanglements with the palm tree, in favor of a cash crop whose value was tied to a growing market for olive oil. When the current drought – the worst in three decades, now entering its fifth consecutive year – thwarted the biotic capacity of olive trees to respond to commercial expectations, for some olives became one of the many allies making up the network of interdependencies on which subsistence farming rests. For others, the current socioecological predicament renders olive production obsolete: memories of a past ecology centered around the palm tree inform new dreams of establishing a collectively owned, mixed-species plantation in the steppe surrounding the oasis.