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*Apologies for cross-posting*
CFP - Political Ecologies of Conflict, Capitalism and Contestation (PE-3C)
7-9 July, 2016
Wageningen, The Netherlands
Landscapes of Knowledge, Power, and Resistance:
The Political Ecologies of Flex Crops in Latin America
Adrienne Johnson (Clark University), Sara Mingorría (Autonomous University of Barcelona),
Juan Luis Dammert (Clark University)
In recent times, Latin America has experienced the accelerated expansion of ‘flex’ crops – crops and commodities (such as oil palm, sugar cane, and jatropha) that have multiple, interchangeable uses as food, feed, or fuel (Borras Jr. et al. 2014). Though often promoted as opportunities of economic wealth and livelihood stability, flex crops and their environments are closely associated with processes of environmental vulnerability, ecological violence and social conflict. In Latin America, a combination and/or collision of unique and often violent institutional, political, and material processes lay a foundation that facilitates the growth of, but also the contestation to, flex crop landscapes. Specifically, such landscapes are enhanced by the increase of international capitalist investment in industrial agricultural projects, the emergence of global sustainable governance mechanisms that structure commodity production, and the ambivalence of state bodies who (actively or passively) promote the expansion of flex crops. In response, a growing set of social actors, organizations, and movements have emerged to counter and/or lessen the effects of large-scale flex crop landscapes and to form alternative ecological arrangements. Many of these collectives employ mandates centering on ancestral claims to land, territorial knowledge, and principles of food sovereignty to resist and/or alleviate the encroaching pressures of flex crop processes.
In this session, we are interested in exploring how the multi-scalar dynamics of global interests, national objectives, and local ways of life converge to produce the current violent landscapes of flex crop ecologies in Latin America. We welcome empirically and theoretically driven papers that examine a variety of flex crop realities involving crops such as oil palm, soy, jatropha, and more. Several themes the papers may address include:
· Through what (violent) mechanisms are flex crop landscapes rationalized, negotiated, and forced?
· What are the particular ways that structural/institutional/epistemic violence manifests in flex crop environments and how do these processes disable the knowledges of marginalized peoples?
· What are the relationships between actors involved (state, companies, paramilitary, communities, elites, NGOs, etc.) that produce different flex crop landscapes?
· What alternative projects are being put forth as a way to counter and/or challenge the homogenizing effects of flex crop landscapes?
***If interested in participating, please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to Adrienne Johnson ([log in to unmask]) before December 11th, 2015 to be included in this session.
References:
Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Jennifer C. Franco, Ryan Isakson, Les Levidow, & Vervest, P. (2014).
Towards understanding the politics of flex crops and commodities: Implications for
research and policy advocacy. Retrieved from https://www.tni.org/files/download/flexcrops01.pdf