Agroecological Transitions in the Era of Pandemics: Combining Local Knowledge and the Appropriation of New Technologies

Abstract

The last chapter of the book collects the challenge of finding territorial alternatives to development in the context of climate change, agroecological transition, and food sovereignty as compasses to navigate the uncertainty of the pandemic era. The chapter recalls the role of agroecology, either in the rural and urban context, to overcome the social and environmental impacts of conventional farming through the integrated and multi-scale approach among social and natural systems based on the rights of farmers and citizens connected in sustainable and sovereign food networks. The local knowledge systems of constituting the unique place-based coevolving experiences of agroecology are involved in the co-creating of knowledge also through technological appropriation of the new commons of geographical information and technology. Many emancipatory processes are ongoing in many parts of the world, from the Amazon rainforest supporting the struggle of indigenous groups for safe territories to urban peripheries and conventional farming areas of the global north.