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.

Smessaert, J., Feola, G., (in press). Becoming-interdependent: democratic praxis in-against-and-beyond capitalism in agrifood collectives. Antipode. Abstract. This paper contributes to debates on autonomous geographies by fore-grounding and analysing democratic praxis in two grassroots agrifood collectives to interrogate the ways in which it constitutes a vehicle for postcapitalist transformation. We focus on the negotiation and (re)distribution of power…

Raj, G. (in press). Selective, reciprocal and quiet: Lessons from rural queer empowerment in community-supported agriculture. Agriculture and Human Values.   Abstract. Rural queer studies, viewed through the lens of relational agriculture, offer critiques of heteropatriarchal norms in farming and highlight strategies used by queer farmers to manoeuvre discrimination and thrive in rural areas. This…

Frank, L., Feola., G., Schäpke, N., 2024. Assessing regime destabilisation through policy change: An analysis of agricultural policy in the United Kingdom during Brexit. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 50, 100810.   Abstract In sustainability transitions research, the deliberate destabilisation of socio-technical regimes is increasingly recognised as a central intervention point. Absent, however, are granular approaches for assessing…

On 31 January 2024 Leonie Guerrero Lara successfully defended her PhD titled ‘Nurturing Networks: A Social Movement Lens on Community-Supported Agriculture‘. Abstract The political dimension of community-supported agriculture (CSA), beyond prefiguring alternatives to the conventional, capitalist agri-food system, has remained largely unexplored by the scientific community. The large majority of studies on CSA have explored…

Giuseppe Feola spoke at Utrecht University’s Future Food Annual Symposium, on the theme ‘Future Food Systems: Evolution or Revolution’. Giuseppe discussed the following statement, in response to the organizer’s invitation to discuss whether achieving sustainable food systems would involve evolution or revolution, and what would be the role of scientists in that endeavour: Nothing short…

On 18 October Julia Spanier gave a talk titled ‘Rural-urban degrowth transformations: lessons from community-supported agriculture’ at the Postgrowth Cities project at the University of Amsterdam. Julia’s talk built on research from her PhD, and addressed the following questions: How are degrowth transformations facilitated and hindered by present-day rural-urban relations? What is the role and meaning…

Leonie Guerrero Lara presented the paper ‘Degrowth and agri-food systems: a research agenda for the critical social sciences‘ at the Critical Political Economy Research Network monthly meeting (online) on 5 October 2023. The discussant was Dr Bernd Bonfert, Postdoc at the Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University. The full paper can be found here.

Members of the UNMAKING team organized and/or presented at the  ‘3rd Utrecht Degrowth Symposium: Sowing sustainability in food and agriculture‘ at Utrecht University. The symposium brought together policymakers and civil servants, researchers, students, farmers,  social movements, and other interested people to explore what a degrowth perspective can bring to the debate on agri-food system sustainability….

Laura van Oers and Giuseppe Feola present at the 14th International Sustainability Transitions Conference in Utrecht. Laura van Oers: Community-supported agriculture as spaces to unlearn capitalism? Evidence from two Dutch cases. The importance of double-loop learning and associated unlearning for sustainability transitions is increasingly recognised (van Mierlo and Beers 2020; van Poeck and Östman 2021; Vetter…