Considering the Diverse Views of Ecologisation in the Agrifood Transition: An Analysis Based on Human Relationships with Nature

Danièle Magda,Claire Lamine,Jean-Paul Billaud

doi:10.3197/096327121x16387842836940

Abstract

This article aims to characterise the visions of ecologisation found within scientific approaches embraced by different epistemic communities, and which have inspired empirical work and public action on agrifood system transitions. Based on comparative readings of works anchored in our two disciplinary fields (ecology and sociology), we identified six large ensembles of epistemic communities as well as their points of convergence and divergence. We identify six ideotypical visions of ecologisation based on the types of ‘relationships to nature’ embedded in these large sets of epistemic communities: protectionism, functionalism, structuralism, post-structuralism, relational and pragmatist-experience-based. We suggest that pragmatist-experience-based approaches allow us to transcend two classical oppositions: between realism and constructivism, and between a conception of nature as passive and external as opposed to active and relational. Without claiming to offer a detailed analysis of these approaches, we hope that our work can be used as a tool to support reflection among scientists and other actors involved in agrifood system transitions.

Highlights

The concept of ecologisation emerged in French-language research of the early 1990s to describe the inclusion of environmental issues in public agricultural policies (Berlan Darqué and Kalora 1992)
The term ecologisation, which is mainly used in the scientific literature, is much less institutionalised than ‘sustainable development’ or the ‘ecological transition’, which are well established in environmental policies
We identify six main ideotypical views of ecologisation embraced by six large groups of epistemic1 communities: protectionism, functionalism, Marxist- and structuralist-inspired approaches, post-structuralism, relational approaches and pragmatist-experience-based approaches

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The concept of ecologisation emerged in French-language research of the early 1990s to describe the inclusion of environmental issues in public agricultural policies (Berlan Darqué and Kalora 1992). These diverse approaches share a few key elements: first, the idea that it is through the experience of nature, and/or for some the sensory-based link that unfolds in this experience, that a process of ecologisation of practices can occur (in this, they align with some of the abovementioned relational approaches); second, the leveraging effect of collective dynamics to build situated knowledge; and third, support for interdisciplinarity that cuts across the social and biological sciences This re-connects to the first wave of interdisciplinary work on environmental issues in the 1980s and 90s in France, which aimed to bring the social and bioecological aspects of the issues at hand together into a single analysis, in order to develop a ‘multidimensional’ understanding (Jollivet 1992, 2009), while taking the objects of nature and non-human beings seriously. Nature is revealed in the actors’ perception and experience (in a more consequentialist or more sensory-based way) through investigation or collective experimentation

DISCUSSION

D APPROACHES INSPIRED BY