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.

To the Article

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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Find the PDF here (German)

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.

Abstract:

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.

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Abstract:

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.

Open Access

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.

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Abstract

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.

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