This editorial lays out the core themes of the special feature and provides an overview of the contributions. It introduces the main argument, namely that the promises of far-reaching change made by recent bioeconomy policies are in fact strategically directed at avoiding transformative change to existing societal arrangements. Bioeconomy discourse showcases technological solutions purported to solve sustainability ‘problems’ while sustaining economic growth, but avoids issues of scalability, integration or negative consequences. Thus, bioeconomy policies, and particularly the latest versions of the predominantly European ‘bio-resource’ variety that have rhetorically integrated a lot of previous sustainability-minded criticism, serve to ward off or delay challenges to an unsustainable status quo, in effect prolongating the escalatory imperatives of capitalist modernity that are at the root of current crises. The editorial’s second part highlights the contributions that the 13 featured articles, based on theoretical considerations as well as policy analyses and empirical case studies from a range of countries, make to this argument.
On March 22, 2023, a “speed searching” took place simultaneously in six European university cities on the occasion of World Water Day. At the University of Jena, Philip Koch, PhD student, and Romy Langeheine, staff member for public relations and transfer, were available for flumen to answer interested visitors’ questions about the work of the junior research group.
The article argues for a notion of the socio-ecological transformation conflict in the singular, as a complex of diverse disputes about whether and how capitalist societies need to transform in response to current crises. For an empirical interpretation it analyses representative survey data, distinguishing three “camps” of socio-ecological mentalities in the German population and locating them in a socio-ecologically extended Bourdieuian social space to identify three conflict dimensions – adaptation, distribution, and externalization –, each with its own class-structural dynamics. It concludes that renewed left strategies should aim for a stronger politicization of the externalization dimension.
Bioeconomy is portrayed by the EU and several national governments as a central element contributing to sustainability strategies and a post-fossil transformation. This paper critically engages with extractivist patterns and tendencies in the forest sector as one of the main bio-based sectors. It argues that despite the official endorsement of circularity and renewability in the forest-based bioeconomy, current developments of modern bioeconomy might threaten sustainability prospects. The Finnish forest-based bioeconomy and one of its well-known showcase projects, the bioproduct mill (BPM) in the municipality of Äänekoski, serve as a case study in this paper. The forest-based bioeconomy in Finland is scrutinized as a potential continuation or consolidation of extractivist patterns, rather than an alternative to these tendencies. The lens of extractivism is applied to identify possible extractivist and unsustainable characteristics of the case study which are discussed along the following dimensions: (A) degree of export orientation and processing, (B) the scale, scope, and speed of extraction, (C) socio-economic and environmental impacts, and (D) subjective relations to nature. The extractivist lens provides analytical value to scrutinizing practices, principles, and dynamics of the contested political field and vision of bioeconomy in the Finnish forest sector. The analysis results in a discussion of latent and manifest social, political, and ecological contradictions within the forest-based bioeconomy in Finland. Based on its analytical lens and the empirical case of the BPM in Äänekoski, it can be concluded that extractivist patterns and tendencies are perpetuated within the Finnish forest-based bioeconomy.
For her “Qualitative case study on forest and timber industries in Finland”, Jana Holz has interviewed actors in the timber industry in central Finland several times in recent years about their work, as well as people from retail, politics and NGOs about their nature relations. From May 15 to 17 and on May 22, 2023, she will present the results of her studies on site in Jyväskylä and Äänekoski in workshops of different formats:
The first will be an afternoon workshop in cooperation with the Finnish Forestry Museum Lusto in Äänekoski on May 15, 2023, aimed at interviewees and interested parties from the region. At the beginning of the workshop “Future Heritage Äänekoski” Jana Holz will present her research results, based on these the staff of the Lusto Forest Museum will guide through the event.
On May 16 to 17, Jana Holz will organize a scientific workshop at the University of Jyväskylä in cooperation between flumen, the “Human-Forest Relationship Research Club of the Finnish Society of Forest Science“, the “JYU.Wisdom – School of Resource Wisdom” and the “SOBIO network“. The multidisciplinary workshop is aimed at scientists from the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences and is entitled: “(BIO)DIVERSITY IN THE FOREST CONTESTED FORESTS, HUMAN PRACTICES, AND FUTURE CHALLENGES”. At the end of the workshop Jana Holz will give a presentation in the open colloquium of the “JYU.Wisdom – School of Resource Wisdom” on “Social relationships with nature and the Finnish forest-based bioeconomy”.
As a conclusion of the transfer activities in central Finland, Jana Holz will visit a class of high school students in Äänekoski on May 22. There, the concept of the social nature relationship space will be presented and introduced to the students through a simulation game.
At the end of the transfer stay in Finland, Jana Holz will host an event on “Human-Forest Relationships as part of future sustainability solutions” as part of the “Sustainability Science Days” at the University of Helsinki from May 24 to 26, in which scientists from Finland and Belgium, among others, will present research results on forest-human relations, digitalization and forest experience, forests in cities and forest bioeconomy. The “Sustainability Science Days” are aimed at an interested specialist audience from science and practice.
This article is a rather theoretical contribution that aims to explain how different power structures (colonialism, capitalist nature relations and patriarchy) all mutually contribute to ‚invisibilizing‘ & devaluing & appropriating certain long-established and sustainable bio-based practices (such as FSP at the Eastern Estonian dachas as case study). It argues that for a genuinely transformational bioeconomy that would do justice to the foundational idea of the concept of ‘bio-economics’ by Georgescu-Roegen it is crucial to engage with these underlying power relations of current bioeconomy models.
As such, suggestions by the author are the following: first, to deconstruct the current bioeconomy models as just another postcolonial development discourse and instead embrace the plurality of decolonial ‘alternatives to development’; second, to overcome the deepening human–nature dichotomy in current bioeconomy models and instead cultivate mutually nourishing, partnership-like relation(ship) s with nature; and third, to foster ethics of care in order to overcome the structure of separation between monetized and maintenance economies.
This paper starts out from the observation that recent official bioeconomy strategies and policy concepts are markedly more moderate in their promises of economic growth compared to the high-flying expectations of a ‘biotech revolution’ promoted around the turn of the millennium. We argue that this stepwise process of moderation is partly due to a series of ‘reality checks’ to which various strands of research on the bioeconomy have (willingly or unwillingly) subjected these promises, forcing governments to move away from visions exposed as unrealistic and to adopt more humble ones. We identify four such ‘reality checks’, originating from research on (a) bioeconomy discourses and knowledges, (b) contestation and power dynamics among actors and competing interests in bioeconomy politics and policymaking, as well as on (c) the economic and (d) biophysical dimensions of existing bio-based economies. In conclusion, we argue that bioeconomy research should adopt a broader perspective that considers transitions toward bio-based processes and resources as but one element in a comprehensive social–ecological transformation of current modes of production and living, and that understanding the dynamics of societal conflict around that transformation is crucial for assessing the social possibility of bioeconomy visions.
In this paper, Dennis Eversberg examines the dimensions of the socio-ecological transformation conflict at the level of the population’s lifestyle(s). Using data from the representative survey “Environmental Awareness in Germany 2018”, the paper asks what forms this complex social conflict takes, along which contrasts it runs, and what this tells us about society’s internal tensions and contradictions. Based on a multiple correspondence analysis of data on socio-ecologically relevant everyday practices, three conflict dimensions are distinguished that ignite along contradictory dynamics of expansive socialization: Orientation conflicts along tertiarization and global division of labor, socio-ecological distributional conflicts between property-based social integration and precarization, and transformational conflicts around flexible social integration and activation constraints.
About the book: “Umkämpfte Zukunft. Zum Verhältnis von Nachhaltigkeit, Demokratie und Konflikt” (Zilles et al., 2022)
Climate change poses enormous challenges to societies worldwide. A consensus on how to deal with this threat seems to be condensed in the concept of sustainability. But the supposed unanimity conceals ever fewer conflicts about what exactly is meant by climate protection and sustainable living: how can it be achieved and by whom? And how do these aspirations relate to democratic systems? 41 contributors approach empirically and conceptually the narratives, imaginaries and first manifestations of the future and the implied relationship between democracy, sustainability and conflict.
While Estonian forest sector was the first public policy field where collaborative principles were introduced in the 1990s, the field is ridden with conlflicts. These escalated in 2016 to such levels that it is currently publicly known as the „Forest War“. The Ministry of Environment noticed this and attempted to alleviate tensions during the writing of the Estonian Forestry Development Pland Until 2035 (FDP 2035) by incorporating a large number of stakeholders in the process, hired discussion facilitators and applied other innovative negotiation techniques. However, the process was unable to mitigate tensions between the participants. The presentation looks at the institutions before and during the eruption of the „Forest War“ in search for explanations to its dynamics. The presentation is based on both scientific articles and first-hand experience as an advisor for the Ministry of Environment for designing the FDP 2035 process.
Peeter Vihma received his PhD in sociology in 2022 from the University of Helsinki in Finland. Since January 2022 he is a researcher at the Institute of Forestry and Rural Engineering at the Estonian University of Life Sciences. Peeter Vihma has been involved in forestry governance and civil society analyses and has made extensive analyses about the Estonian forestry debate.
Let’s sit and talk in the scientific café! The “Scientific Coffee HFR” sessions give room for open and relaxed discussions on current research subjects related to human and society relations to forests. It warmly welcomes all interested in forest-related research to join online sessions. Each session lasts approximately two hours. It starts with a 30-minutes presentation of a guest speaker. After the presentation, with coffee or tea and cookies at hand, participants have plenty of room for an open discussion and exchange. The “Scientific Coffee HFR” takes place two to three times per semester on Wednesday afternoons.
Guest speakers wanted! If you are interested in contributing to the “Scientific Coffee HFR”, please contact either romy.langeheine(at)uni-jena.de or tuulikki.halla(at)uef.fi with info on your subject (title and short abstract) and a preferred Wednesday (13-15 CET / 14-16 EET). The idea for a scientific coffee HFR came up during a cooperation between Finnish and German researchers in 2021. The Finnish research project Human-Forest Relationships in Societal Change and the German research group Mentalities in Flux (flumen) organized the workshop “Contested Society-Nature-Relations. Forest related Emotions, Practices & Conflicts in Times of Societal Change” in May 2021. The first “Scientific Coffee HFR” session was held in September 2021.
