Call for papers: Power and politics in agri-food systems transformation

We welcome abstract submissions to our special session on Power and politics in agri-food system transformation at the upcoming conference of the European Society of Ecological Economics (Pisa, Italy, 14-17 June 2022).

Submissions via this link.

Session description

Sustainability transformations are inherently political. The processes and outcomes of sustainability transformations are shaped by the ways in which different actors frame issues and set goals, assert positions and form alliances for or against change, and more generally try to influence the direction and speed of transformations. Therefore, notions of power, empowerment, and contention, among others are central to identifying, understanding, and supporting transformative actions to escape from the current unsustainable paths. Typical issues of governance of sustainability transformations, such as phasing out unsustainable practices and scaling sustainable ones, designing inclusive institutional arrangements that support sustainable socio-technical regimes, or asserting principles of justice, cannot be satisfactorily addressed without delving into power and politics.

This special session offers a space for discussion of these issues with specific focus on agri-food system transformation. Agri-food systems are central to the problematic of environmental change (e.g. in terms of contributions to greenhouse gas emissions), and while the agri-food sector appears imbalanced, with powerful actors (e.g., multinationals producing food or agricultural input, large food retail industry) in incumbent positions, food practices are an important area of contention and experimentation both through grassroots (e.g., Community Supported Agriculture) and other initiatives (e.g., green public procurement of food).

The papers in this special session discuss power and politics in agri-food system transformation with an eye to a diversity of arenas (e.g., within a grassroots innovation or networks thereof at regional or national levels), forms of power and empowerment (e.g., action-theoretical, systemic and constitutive power), political dynamics (e.g., pluriversal politics, prefigurative politics), and roles of grassroots initiatives (e.g., social movements, sites of experimentation of alternative practices). Altogether the paper presentations and the discussion will facilitate exchange of research findings and reflection with the ambition to contribute to ongoing debates in sustainability transformations Ecological Economics and beyond.

Organisers:

Guilherme Raj, Leonie Guerrero Lara, and Giuseppe Feola, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University (The Netherlands)