Farming justice : rights-based approaches to collective agrobiodiversity conservation
(2016)
Files
201611FarmingJustice_Coolsaet.pdf
Open Access - Adobe PDF
- 1.22 MB
Details
- Authors
- Supervisors
- Abstract
- Justice concerns are at the core of struggles and conflicts brought about by the ineluctable trade-offs related to agrobiodiversity conservation. This work’s point of departure lies in trying to understand how these concerns find support in bottom-up conservation initiatives in Western Europe; and how this relates to conservation outcomes. I argue that rights-based governance approaches (i.e. approaches involving themselves with social and environmental justice) to agrobiodiversity conservation are not only compatible with effective conservation and farming outcomes, but that they are a condition to their long-term success. To study these rights-based approaches, this work adopts a critical theory perspective, albeit one that involves itself heavily with environmental concerns. In the context of agrobiodiversity conservation, an environmental critical theory requires thinking of conservation not only as the management of a socio-ecological system, which may or may not be effective, but as a broader socio-political process, in which forces of cultural, economic and political domination are at play. More in particular, I look at a series of bottom-up agrobiodiversity conservation cases in Western Europe and explore their justice-relevant governance arrangements. First, following recent work on environmental justice and drawing on Nancy Fraser’s conception of justice as ‘parity of participation’, a three-dimensional justice framework is used to understand how different rights find support in the cases. Second, drawing on the literature on participatory governance and citizenship developed in the environmental and development studies, I ask under which conditions these rights-based governance arrangements have led to effective conservation outcomes. Third, I focus on one of the dimensions of justice, i.e. cultural recognition, by exploring its meaning and specificity in the context of the agrobiodiversity conservation. This leads to a deepening of the issue of recognition by looking explicitly at its epistemic dimension in the context of agrobiodiversity conservation, using insights from decolonial thought. It appears that agrobiodiversity conservation is not simply an environmental or agricultural matter. In the different cases studied in this work it is an instrument for a broader struggle; a struggle for justice. In their efforts to conserve agrobiodiversity, farming organizations redefine the conditions under which their members participate in society. Governance arrangements for the conservation of agrobiodiversity are used to redistribute or communalize available resources; to oppose institutional threats to farmer’s culture, knowledge and livelihoods; to (re)build a common rural identity and citizenship; and to encourage self-determination and foster empowerment. Under the banner of peasant, local and/or organic agriculture, through the reintroduction of traditional varieties, the creation of new varieties using farm-based knowledge, and the redesign of innovation models, individual farmers are connected to collective movements demanding justice and a more efficient agricultural model. It is the combination of injustice and inefficiency of the current farming model that spurs the emergence of movements of resistance, such as those studied in this work. An effective agrobiodiversity conservation strategy hence will need to address both dimensions simultaneously. Movements adopting such an approach are key for the reinvention and the sustainable transformation of European agriculture and the conservation of agricultural biodiversity.
- Affiliations
Citations
Coolsaet, B. (2016). Farming justice : rights-based approaches to collective agrobiodiversity conservation. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/180405