The Working Paper No. 215/2023 from the Institute for International Political Economy Berlin at the Berlin School of Economics and Law was authored by Lilian Pungas in collaboration with Jana Gebauer and Gerrit von Jorck.

Abstract

This paper traces the links between post-socialist transformations and the degrowth movement. Based on a series of workshops entitled “Degrowth Enthusiasm and the Eastern Blues” that we organised in recent years, this paper focuses on the following questions: what can we learn from the state-socialist societies’ transformation processes into capitalist societies? What experiences and practices before and after these transformations can potential degrowth societies build on? To what extent can people’s experiences with an alternative system and its transformation contribute to unfolding their potential in a social-ecological transformation and to overcoming ‘change fatigue’? We present key findings from our workshops, which we combined with our own empirical evidence from Estonia and a theoretical examination of (post-)socialist economics to form six theses that we consider essential for a decolonial degrowth debate.

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Journalist Florian Zinner takes a detailed and low-level look at flumen’s research on mentalities and the social-ecological transformation in issue #91 of MDR’s Climate Update, Friday, June 2, 2023.

You can find the full article in German here.

On 22.06.2023 Martin Fritz will give a talk at the colloquium on the history of science at the Ernst-Haeckel-Haus of the University of Jena entitled “A cartography of the social-ecological transformation in Germany: Exploring interconnections between classes, mentalities and practices”. The results of the relational analyses of the survey data of flumen will be presented and discussed with the participants.

On 05/31/2023, Martin Fritz and Linda von Faber presented flumen’s research at the Catholic Student Community in Erfurt. They gave a lecture on “Inequalities in the context of energy crisis and socio-ecological transformation” and afterwards discussed with the students about mentalities, ways of living and possibilities to cope with the double challenge of increasing inequalities and ecological crises.

Abstract

Forests are a crucial and contested part of nature. Their management is at the center of policies and conflicts around global sustainability aspirations and potential futures. Human attitudes and practices play major role in these policies and conflicts. This article focuses on the meanings humans attach to forests. These meanings act as drivers influencing activities and decision-making from forest use to governance, and escalation of forest conflicts.

This article sets out 1) to establish and develop the concept of the human-forest relationship (HFR) in order to elaborate on people’s forest-related meanings, and 2) to discuss the potentials of the HFR concept for forest policy and research with a focus on forest conflicts and potential futures.

The HFR concept depicts a reciprocal relationship between humans and forests that is formed as a result of personal experiences, life histories, as well as cultural and societal backgrounds and environmental settings. HFR possesses the future dimension, as the forest-related meanings may be reflected in the expectations that humans connect to the future state of forests. As forests differ from other natural environments ecologically, culturally, politically, and socially, the HFR concept contributes in identifying, describing and analyzing these forest- specific meanings influencing forest policy and management.

To the Article

“Von Yuppies, Ökos, Egos und dem kleinen Mann” is the title of Malene Gürgen’s interview with the two Flumen scientists Jana Holz and Martin Fritz for the taz. In it, the two talked about “how money, education and environmental awareness are connected” and “which clichés are true and which are not”.

The interview has been published in the weekly wochentaz and online here.

Additional Article

On the same topic Malene Gürgen also published the article “Alles eine Frage der Mentalität” (“It’s all a matter of mentality”) in the taz-newsletter.

Read this article here.

Invitation

We cordially invite you to the first Sociological Forest Symposium on 01.12.2023, 9:30 to 17:00, at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. With this symposium we would like to encourage a low-threshold exchange of sociologists and sociologically researching social scientists working in the field of forests and forestry. Among other things, but not exclusively, the focus will be on questions of forest-based bioeconomy, care, forest use and exploitation, relevant actors and institutions as well as questions of socio-ecological sustainability.

The focus of the event is on networking, exploring different methodological and theoretical perspectives and a specific sociological view on forests.

Two formats of contributions are planned:

a) the classic lecture format (15min + 10 min discussion) and

b) a pitch format (max. 3min pP, preferably with 1-2 slides, a flipchart or poster), in which you can present your research questions or project ideas.

Refreshments will be provided. The flumen project will provide the catering as well as the premises. Travel and possible accommodation costs have to be paid by yourself at this first meeting.

Please send us your registration (title, short abstract, proposed contribution and format or participation without own contribution) by 15.09.2023 (ronja.schroeder@uni-oldenburg.de).

We look forward to your feedback!

The Orga-Team

Jana Holz (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Institute of Sociology, flumen),

Ronja Mikoleit (Social Change Unit of the Forest Research Institute Baden-Württemberg, Freiburg),

Anna Saave (Humboldt University Berlin, Department of Agricultural Economics, BioMaterialities) and

Ronja Schröder (Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Institute of Social Sciences, Social Theory Group)

Büttner, Melissa (2023)

Abstract

This paper draws on the concept of socio-ecological mentalities (Eversberg 2020) and uses the data set of the survey “Environmental Consciousness in Germany 2018”
to develop a typology of mentalities towards every day mobility and sustainability. Applying factor and clusteranalysis, eight different mentalities were extracted sho- wing that automobility is in the very center of a conflict revolving around a possible transformation of the mobility sector. To illustrate these finding and to highlight the relationships between the clusters, these mentalities were grouped in two camps: One the one hand there are four persistent car-centred attitudes which are (1) the anti-eco- logical car-enthusiasm, (2) the expansionist multioptionalism, (3) the conservative automobilism and a (4) pseudo-affirmative growth affinity. On the other hand, there is a camp that covers car-sceptical and progressive attitudes consisting of (5) the pragmatic preference for public transport, (6) the discontented forced automobility, the (7) mobility minimalism and (8) the progressive bicycle enthusiasm. Both camps cover each approximately half of the sample. This constellation of very different, even strongly opposing mentalities indicates that every day mobility and its possible future transformation is a highly polarized field of conflict with a strong discontent about regulations of the automobile system. The last section of the paper then applies the concept of fossil mentalities (Büttner/Schmelzer 2021) to discuss in how far these ty- pes of attitudes are based on ideas and notions of mobility that only evolved through the mass usage of fossil fuels. Using the relational approach of socio-ecological men- talities thereby proved to be a useful framework to highlight opportunities as well as hurdles towards a socio-ecological transformation.

To the Working Paper No 7

Abstract

Against the backdrop of multiple crises within—and due to—the current industrial agri-food system, food is a highly political issue. As calls for food sovereignty grow louder and the war in Ukraine exposes the fragility of global food systems, the concept of food democracy calls on all (food) citizens to engage in a democratic and collective struggle for socially just and environmentally friendly food systems. To date, “Western” examples of food democracy and formal political procedures of civil society have dominated scholarship, ignoring the self-organized, low-key, and informal political activities around food in the post-socialist East. In this article, we shed light on the aspects of food democracy within Food Self-Provisioning (FSP) practices in Eastern Estonia, which is our case study. Our empirical data is based on semi-structured interviews conducted in 2019–2021 with 27 gardeners on their so-called dachas—a Russian term for a plot of land with a seasonal allotment house used primarily for food production. The analysis focuses on the food-, farming-, and nutrition-related attitudes and practices of the gardeners, as well as the multitude of collective endeavors to improve food systems. Despite the precarious socio-economic and political status of the gardeners, we identified a variety of subtle, informal, and mundane forms of democratic practices and everyday resistance. We investigate the interplay of these aspects along the three dimensions of food democracy (input, throughput, output). On the one hand, FSP on Eastern Estonian dachas encompasses essential characteristics of the mainly “Western” concept of food democracy, allowing access to and participation in agricultural production while preserving (re)productive nature in the future. On the other hand, we caution against excessive optimism and romanticization of such local food communities, as they tend to remain exceptions and risk extinction or displacement if they are not valorized and reshaped through public discourse. We conclude with a plea for building and strengthening alliances between the marginalized elderly rural food producers and the more youthful urban food activists to achieve more democratic, just, and ecologically sound food systems.

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Abstract

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.

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