„Empty Promises and self-fulfilling prophecies. Bioeconomy (and circular economy) from a critique of growth perspective” – that was the title of Jana Holz’ keynote, that she held in the online workshop “potentials of the concept of a circular economy“ on 24 March 2021.

The workshop was part of the discussion series “degrowth – vision of the future or an illusion?” organized by the AK Wien and Degrowth Vienna.

Jana Holz takes part in the 3rd International Forest Policy Meeting (IFPM3) (https://ifpm3.info/) on March 17 and 18, 2021. The event is organized by the Chair of Forest and Environmental Policy, University of Freiburg together with IUFRO Division 09.05.

In the panel “Global Forest Bioeconomy: Continuity or a Pathway to Transformations?” Jana gives a lecture on “Forest-based Bioeconomy in Finland: Extractivist Loopholes?“. She also contributes to the 3MT Competition (Three Minute Thesis Competition), where she will present the topic of her doctorate to a wide audience within three minutes. Here is more information about the 3MT competition idea.

He will present his paper „The Critique of Growth in Historical Context“. The workshop will run from 9:30-11:30 a.m. Please register here https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QQRtKHx2SFaYIU-0ovMGJw

Program:

‘The Limits to Certainty and the Metaphysics of Infinitude’ Nandita Badami (UC Irvine)
Discussants: Venus Bivar (York) and Kristoffer Ekberg (Chalmers)

‘Writing the History of Ecological Economic Thought’ Antoine Missemer (CIRED Paris) and Marco Paulo Vianna Franco (KLI)
Discussants: Julia Nordblad (Uppsala) and Matthias Schmelzer (Jena)

‘Critiques of Growth in Historical Context’ Matthias Schmelzer (Jena)
Discussants: Roman Gilmintinov (Duke) and Glenda Sluga (EUI)

„The Ecology of Economic Thought“ is a five-part online workshop of the Canada Program at Weatherhead Center of the Harvard University. See more https://programs.wcfia.harvard.edu/canada_program/Ecology.

Lilian Pungas, 2021. “Caring dachas – Food self-provisioning in Eastern Europe through the lens of care”, in: Nelson, A., Edwards, F. (Ed.): Food for Degrowth. Perspectives and Practices. Routledge, London & New York, 59-74.

Abstract: The notions of care and stewardship are at the root of all practices concerning food production – from ploughing the soil and sowing, to harvesting, cooking, preserving and composting. Yet, in contrast to cooking, cultivating land is often not perceived as ‘classical’ care work. Instead, care is mostly framed as an interhuman activity concerned with human sustenance and reproduction and therefore, associated mostly with household work, raising children and taking care of the elderly (Waerness 1984; Jochimsen 2003). Given that care remains a rather marginalised category, my goal in this chapter is to reinforce and enrich the discourse on care in degrowth scholarship by demonstrating how food self-provisioning (FSP) in both urban and periurban areas is grounded in ideas of care and stewardship, not only as an interhuman act, but also in connection to the soil and surrounding environment. In this sense, caring means ‘reaching out to something other than the self’ (Tronto 1993, 102) implying a deep empathy with other (living) beings, as well as being followed by some form of action.

Drawing on four of Tronto’s (1993) expressions of care, I demonstrate that, despite seeming ‘irrational’ in economic terms, FSP is essentially a very rational act of care based on a deep understanding of interdependence and mutual vulnerability between humans and nonhuman nature (Gottschlich 2012). Care manifests as reciprocal ‘caring about’, ‘care-giving’ and ‘care-receiving’ with the surrounding environment, the gardener’s community and oneself. In this case study, I explore how notions of care are expressed in FSP, and how they can all be recognised as predominant intrinsic motives behind this practice. In contrast, I display how promises and narratives of industrial agriculture fall into Tronto’s fourth category (‘taking care of’) as rather ‘masculine’, ‘public’ and ‘loud’ manifestations of care. Tronto’s (2013) subsequent, fth, dimension of care (‘caring with’) constitutes a less hierarchical relationship as well as a complex interdependence between both counterparts (care-giver and care-receiver) so might provide an additional (potentially more appropriate) framework for analysing care in FSP practice. However, in this chapter the focus lies on the other four dimensions of care for the sake of nuanced analysis of specic aspects and motives of care practice with regard to FSP. 

The article is part of the miscenally: Nelson, A., Edwards, F. (Ed.), 2021. Food for Degrowth. Perspectives and Practices. Routledge, London & New York.

This collection breaks new ground by investigating applications of degrowth in a range of geographic, practical and theoretical contexts along the food chain. Degrowth challenges growth and advocates for everyday practices that limit socio-metabolic energy and material flows within planetary constraints. As such, the editors intend to map possibilities for food for degrowth to become established as a field of study.

International contributors offer a range of examples and possibilities to develop more sustainable, localised, resilient and healthy food systems using degrowth principles of sufficiency, frugal abundance, security, autonomy and conviviality. Chapters are clustered in parts that critically examine food for degrowth in spheres of the household, collectives, networks, and narratives of broader activism and discourses. Themes include broadening and deepening concepts of care in food provisioning and social contexts; critically applying appropriate technologies; appreciating and integrating indigenous perspectives; challenging notions of ‘waste’, ‘circular economies’ and commodification; and addressing the ever-present impacts of market logic framed by growth.

This book will be of greatest interest to students and scholars of critical food studies, sustainability studies, urban political ecology, geography, environmental studies such as environmental sociology, anthropology, ethnography, ecological economics and urban design and planning.

https://www.routledge.com/Food-for-Degrowth-Perspectives-and-Practices/Nelson-Edwards/p/book/9780367436469

Eversberg, Dennis and Jana Holz. 2020. Empty Promises of Growth: The Bioeconomy and Its Multiple Reality Checks

Abstract:

In this paper, we want to make two arguments. Firstly, we observe that the current trend in official policy concepts and strategies of the bioeconomy is toward a moderation of the promises of economic growth that it has been associated with since the beginning of this millennium. We argue that this process of moderation is at least partly due to the effects of a series of ‘reality checks’ that the different existing strands of research on the bioeconomy have (willingly or unwillingly) subjected the promises to, forcing governments to move away from obviously unrealistic visions and adopt more humble ones. We identify four such reality checks, coming from research on (a) bioeconomy discourses and strategies, (b) actors and
interests in the political economy of the bioeconomy, and (c) the economic and biophysical materialities that make up ‘the bioeconomy’. Secondly, we propose that a fourth, sociological reality check is currently being mounted, exposing the social implausibility and democratic illegitimacy of the bioeconomy’s promissory visions. Using survey data from Germany
to develop a provisional analysis of the tensions and conflicts within the population that disagreements about the bioeconomy are embedded in, we suggest putting the bioeconomy in its proper political place as part of the larger societal challenge, rather than promise, of achieving a post-fossil transformation of modern societies.

Our Working Papers

The report, presentations and video-contributions of the interdisciplinary workshop held on 7 and 8 October 2020 – read and watch them here.

“Eco-sufficient activities under high-voltage lines and alongside of oil shale mines in Estonia”

Our research colleague Lilian Pungas speaks about oil shale extraction and dacha-gardening in Eastern Estonia.

When? Thursday, 26 November 2020, 1.15 pm.
Moderation: Christina Plank (IPW | Universität Wien)
Where? Online https://moodle.univie.ac.at/mod/bigbluebuttonbn/guestlink.php?gid=4tQAeJni7Cfa

Abstract:

Estonia is the only member state within the EU, that is for decades consistently mining out oil shale and, thereby, has one of the highest per capita carbon footprint in Europe. Oil shale – for Estonia that means security of supply and a reduction of risks resulting from a dependency on the big neighbour Russia. Paradoxically, oil shale is extracted in Eastern Estonia, where the majority of the Russian-speaking population lives. This group was already in the 1990s disproportionatly suffering from unemployment and poverty. Now, they fear the closing of some mines because of rising carbon-pricing.

In the 1990s, the Russian-speaking population faced their existential fears by cultivating their own food in the so-called ‘dachas’. Till this day, dachas play an enormously important role and illustrates an example, how one can live sustainable and eco-suffiently despite of the manifold contradicitions in the region.

In interviews with the local population additional topics were touched upon: the impacts of the Corona-pandemic on the activities in the dachas, gender issues in the gardening, human-nature relations as well as alienation and eudaimonia.

The contribution of Lilian Pungas is part of the IPW Lectures, an international lecture series by the Department of Political Science, University of Vienna.

“Tension is mounting!? Social-ecological mentalities in Germany on the eve of »Fridays for Future«“ – with this title of his contribution, Dennis Eversberg takes part in the Research Colloquium on Social Analysis and Social Criticism at the Ludwig.Maximilians-Universität Munich.

For some time, the climate seems to be heating up not only biophysically but also socio-politically the athmosphere is getting tense. While some poeple demonstrate on the streets, in the forests and in coal mines in order to demand a fast move from fossilism to global justice, other people discovered the denial of the anthropogenic climate crisis and the resistance to the energy transition as a political field of mobiling for authoritarian-nationalist ideologies. Is the socio-ecological conflict in Germany polarising? Based on a secondary analysis of the survey “Environmental Consciousness in Germany 2018”, the lecture maps the “landscape” of social-ecological mentalities in this country shortly before the recent upswing of the climate movement and analyzes the dynamics of the conflict within the population at that time.

When? 24 November 2020, 6-8 pm.
Where? online via zoom

The research colloquium is organised by Prof. Dr. Stephan Lessenich (Chair of Social Developments and Structures) in cooperation with the Munich Institute for Social and Sustainability Research as well as the Institute for Sociology. Lehrstuhl Soziale Entwicklungen und Strukturen, LMU München) in Kooperation mit der Münchner Projektgruppe für Sozialforschung e.V. und dem Institut für Soziologie.