Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the ways in which climate change-related interventions such as climate-smart agriculture (CSA) may open up – or close down - spaces for transformation. We explore the interface between worldviews, power relations and policy interventions, focusing in particular on the way that assymetric gender and expert-farmer relations may be reinforced or contested through climate-smart agricultural interventions. It has been argued that fundamental changes required in the face of climate change can only take place through transformation across the personal, practical and political spheres. In particular, it is in the interaction between these spheres where spaces for transformation lie; for example, in the contesting of subjectivities casting farmers as passive recipients of expert advice, in the assumptions regarding what constitutes ‘good , and in how worldviews frame the way we see human-nature relations. Nevertheless, interventions like CSA are often focused mainly on changes to practices or technologies, rather than on how power relations or worldviews shape practices, food security and inequity. Through a case study of Hoima, Uganda, we examine the ways in which the implementation of climate-smart agriculture reinforces existing subjectivities and authority relations or opens up for new (and potentially more emancipatory) subjectivities. First, we describe food security and social inequality drawing on survey data from Hoima. Next, we examine how social actors such as farmers, project workers, local leaders, and government officials position particular farmers or practices as good/progressive or problematic/traditional. We then analyse how these subjectivities reflect authority relations, and the ways in which CSA reinforces or creates space for contesting these. We argue that a focus on commercial agriculture as ‘good’ by many social actors persists also within CSA activities, and is intertwined with asymmetric gender and expert-farmer relations. Commercialisation takes place within the need to increase agricultural production to feed growing urban populations. However, commercialisation for the case of Uganda has also entailed state attempts to govern farmers through farmer associations, the institutional set-up through which CSA often works. A closer attention to these dynamics could potentially help create deeper transformational change through climate-smart agriculture and related climate change interventions.
Highlights
In this paper, we investigate the ways in which climatesmart agriculture (CSA) may open up spaces for agricultural transformation, drawing on the case of Hoima, Uganda
We ask how is CSA translated at the local level in terms of whether it subjects smallholders as active and capable or passive recipients, culprits or drivers of “good development”? Can it find avenues to make adaptation something more than a techno-managerial exercise, by contesting expert-farmer hierarchies as well as gender relations? Does the practice of CSA open up spaces for shifting or contesting power relations, as well as imaginings of “good development” that differ from dominant policy narratives so far? We investigate these questions through a case study of Hoima, Uganda, an area where CSA has been promoted, in part aimed at improving food security
We used subjectivity as an analytical lens to examine the interaction between the personal sphere of worldviews, discourses and beliefs, and the political sphere of socio-political relations, governance and policies, as well as the practical sphere of CSA activities
Summary
We investigate the ways in which climatesmart agriculture (CSA) may open up spaces for agricultural transformation, drawing on the case of Hoima, Uganda. We draw on the case of CSA activities in Hoima to further develop a conceptual understanding of how village level climate change projects intervene in the interaction between the personal, political and practical spheres of transformation. The overarching framework of this study draws on different theories of transformative change, which can be generally represented through three interacting spheres of transformation, referred to as the practical, political, and personal spheres (O’Brien and Sygna, 2013) These spheres capture the way that beliefs, discourses and worldviews interact with political decision-making and governance, as well as with onthe-ground practices that contribute to sustainable food systems. We ask how is CSA translated at the local level in terms of whether it subjects smallholders as active and capable or passive recipients, culprits or drivers of “good development”? Can it find avenues to make adaptation something more than a techno-managerial exercise, by contesting expert-farmer hierarchies as well as gender relations? Does the practice of CSA open up spaces for shifting or contesting power relations, as well as imaginings of “good development” that differ from dominant policy narratives so far? We investigate these questions through a case study of Hoima, Uganda, an area where CSA has been promoted, in part aimed at improving food security
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