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.