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Giuseppe Feola presents at GIIST conference
On 26 September 2024, Giuseppe Feola presented the paper titled ‘Beyond refusal: reconceptualising deconstruction in prefigurative social spaces’ at the Conference ‘Grassroots Innovations as Incubators of Sustainability Transitions’ at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Abstract. Social scientists have often studied grassroots initiatives in terms of prefiguration, which has generated important insights into the construction of…
Read moreJacob Smessaert defended his PhD thesis
On 13 September 2024 Jacob Smessaert successfully defended his PhD thesis titled ‘Practising democracy in agrifood collectives: building political communities in-against-and-beyond capitalism and the state’. Abstract. This thesis sets out to analyse how democratic praxis in grassroots agrifood collectives contributes to the fostering of sustainability transformations that take a critical stance towards capitalism and the…
Read moreProject paper on degrowth and agri-food systems research agenda runner up in Sustainability Science best paper competition
The paper ‘Degrowth and agri-food systems: a research agenda for the critical social sciences‘, published in Sustainability Science, received a honorable mention in the journal’s 2023 Best Paper competition.
Read moreNew publication: Facilitating unlearning in agricultural education
van Oers, L., Feola, G., Moors, E., Runhaar, H., (in press). Facilitating unlearning in agricultural education: preparing for family-farm succession. The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension. Abstract: This paper seeks to explore the manner in which secondary vocational education in agriculture can facilitate unlearning among young farmers. In this context, ‘unlearning’ means deliberately letting go…
Read moreGiuseppe Feola delivers keynote talk
Giuseppe Feola delivered the keynote talk at the opening session of the 15th Conference of the International Farming Systems Association in Trapani, Italy, on 1 July 2024. The talk, titled ‘Postgrowth farming systems: critique, visions, pathways‘, argued that the unsustainability and injustice of industrial food systems in modern capitalist societies have roots not merely in…
Read moreNew publication: Initiating transformation within a Dutch grassroots agri-food initiative: An analysis of social processes
van Oers, L., Smessaert, J., Feola, G., (in press). Initiating transformation within a Dutch grassroots agri-food initiative: An analysis of social processes. Sociologia Ruralis. This article brings new empirical evidence and nuanced reflections on the social processes of transformation within grassroots agri-food initiatives that propose relocalised, decentralised and autonomous ways of organising around food systems….
Read moreLaura van Oers defended her PhD thesis
On 26 June 2024 Laura van Oers successfully defended her PhD thesis titled ‘Unlearning unsustainability: Facilitating phase-out in sustainability transitions in the Dutch food system‘. The thesis aims to contribute to scholarly debates on the governance of regime destabilisation and phase-out in sustainability transition studies. In particular, I suggest broadening the notion of phase-out in…
Read moreGuilherme Raj defends his PhD thesis: ‘It is about power: Unveiling power and empowerment in grassroots agri-food initiatives’
On 22 May 2024, Guilherme Raj defends his thesis titled ‘It is about power: Unveiling power and empowerment in grassroots agri-food initiatives’. This PhD thesis aims to elucidate the role of power and empowerment in the sustainability transformation of agri-food systems. Guilherme focuses on agri-food transformation within grassroots agri-food initiatives, which serve as spaces for…
Read moreNew publication: Transforming labour around food? the experience of community supported agriculture in Italy
Rossi, A., Piccoli, A., Feola, G. (in press). Transforming labour around food? the experience of community supported agriculture in Italy Agriculture and Human Values. Abstract. This study examines the strategies developed by Italian Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) initiatives to de-commodify, de-instrumentalise and de-monetise labour in their attempt to prefigure alternatives to dominant capitalist agri-food systems. To do…
Read moreLaura van Oers presents at UCLouvain
Laura van Oers presented her PhD research on unlearning in sustainability transitions at UCLouvain (Belgium). The research talk was part of a tri-cycle of seminars on unlearning and critical approaches to nature-based solutions. Laura’s talk discussed the notion of ‘unlearning spaces’ and presented insights from her empirical research on community supported agriculture in the Netherlands.
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