Drones and other remote imaging methods are drastically increasing in forestry, forest management, and conservation. These technologies make it possible to estimate harvestable quantities of forest products as well as to determine the state and health of protected and managed forests. However, the use of drones is ambivalent and oftentimes contested, since drone technology is known to increase surveillance and mechanisms of control of local populations.

Our guest Dr. Naomi Millner explains why drone technology is contested in the context of forest conservation. She investigates under which conditions and by whom drones can be turned into tools which strengthen the autonomy of local populations while also serving environmental protection. Dr. Millner will share her vast expertise on community led forest monitoring projects and report on the tendencies currently unfolding in the field. Participants will get the chance to discuss with Dr. Millner and deepen the conversation on drone use in forests, the valorization of nature, and on potentials for convivial resistance and community-based high-tech conservation.

This event is part of the public lecture series ‘High-Tech Valorization of Nature: (Re)Production, Technology and Politics in Green Capitalist

Projects’ hosted by the BioMaterialities Research Group at Humboldt University Berlin.

Join us on November 16, 2022, 6 p.m. (CET) for a public lecture + discussion with Dr. Naomi Millner (Bristol)

Zoom Link: https://hu-berlin.zoom.us/j/66798623234

[source of picture: pixabay.com]

On October 18, 2022 at 6 p.m. in the Thaer-Saal at Invalidenstr. 42 of the Humboldt University in Berlin the opening of the photo exhibition by the Mexican artist Daniel Orozco will be displayed. The exhibition will be on view until the end of October.

With his photos the artist addresses the cultivation of corn in the indigenous purépecha region and brings us closer to one of the most important celebrations, K’uanichitskua. The technological shift in the region, from traditional corn cultivation to the high-tech cultivation of fruit for export, is reflected in the changes at this most important celebration. All aspects of social life are affected: nutrition, culture, migration, gender relations and, last but not least, changes in social relations to nature.

Link: https://www.agrar.hu-berlin.de/de/events/fotoausstellung-des-mexikanische-kuenstlers-daniel-orozco

[source of picture: pixabay.com]

Louisa Prause and Alwin Egger discuss in a live podcast format at the digitalisation and sustainability conference Bits & Bäume 2022 the opportunities and challenges of digitization for socially and ecologically sustainable agriculture.

Link to the recording: https://media.ccc.de/v/bitsundbaeume-20668-digitale-lsungen-fr-eine-kleinbuerliche-landwirtschaft-mit-zukunft-#t=415

[source of picture: pixabay.com]

Event

Records

The panel is online.

The BioMaterialities project says goodbye to its first intern! Carlotta Brinckmann, a student of International Relations and Social Sciences at the University of Erfurt, joined the BioMat team this summer. She conducted research with internship mentor Dr. Anna Saave on feminist perspectives on the bioeconomy. The results of the collaboration can now be read in the article „Feministische Perspektiven auf die Bioökonomie“  in the Economists for Future series on makronom.de.

[Picture source: Manuel Terceros via Unsplash]

When we imagine a transformation towards emancipatory socio-ecological relations, we must consider the special role of agriculture. Capitalist agriculture’s global predation of human and extra-human nature is incompatible with socio-ecological relations seeking to reproduce and care for nature in an emancipatory manner. In taking concrete steps to change agriculture, we face corporate control of market-based agricultural systems, from seeds to supermarkets. This includes the power of ideological narratives according to which, without corporate giants, we simply could not “feed the world”.

Technologies are central to a transformation because they are the material mediators in how we pro-duce and distribute food. Specific technologies are also loci of power, whether as central mechanisms for enforcing property rights, generating data about landscapes and ecosystems, controlling workers, or setting and monitoring standards for productivity. In this event, we bring together experts representing movements that have imagined and put into practice a different way of relating to agriculture, and invite them to discuss the particular role of technologies.

We are interested in assessing the impacts of technological developments that are quickly becoming dominant in agriculture (e.g., digitalization, automation, real-time monitoring of global supply chains). How are current technologies changing the ways in which peasant and small-scale farming communities work? How are they shaping current struggles? And, in light of current struggles for alternative ways of producing food amidst this system: What is the emancipatory potential of current technologies? Can we work with them or do we need an new technological basis? If so, what could it look like?

Join us on October 4, 2022, 7 p.m. (CEST) for a round table discussion with Neth Daño (ETC Group, Philippines), Jasper Bernes  (UC Berkeley, USA), Andrea Vetter (Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie, Germany)

Link: https://hu-berlin.zoom.us/j/62553715005

This event is part of the public lecture series, ‘High-Tech Valorization of Nature: (Re)Production, Technology and Politics in Green Capitalist Projects’ hosted by the BioMaterialities Research Group at Humboldt University of Berlin.

Sarah Hackfort will speak at the Annual Meeting and Conference of the American Political Science Association 2022 in Montreal in Canada. She will contribute to the panel on “Environmental Activism and Politics” on September 16, 10:00 to 11:30am.

Abstract here

APSA Programme here

Louisa Prause holds a tandem talk on the topic of „Emanzipatorische Perspektiven auf die Transformation des Agrar- und Ernährungssystems“ in the lecture series “Transformationsprozesse im Anthropozän – Ansätze, Dilemmata, Perspektiven” at the Technical University of Darmstadt.

Link: https://www.tu-darmstadt.de/isp/gc.de.jsp

[source of picture: pexels.com]

Miriam Boyer and Johannes Fehrle hold a talk on the topic “¿Trabaja la naturaleza? Implicaciones analíticas y políticas de ampliar la categoría trabajo más allá de la sociedad” at the following conference: “9ª Conferencia Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Ciencias Sociales: Tramas de las desigualdades en América Latina y el Caribe Saberes, luchas y transformaciones, Universidad Autónoma Nacional de México”.

[source of picture: pixabay.com]

Sarah Hackfort will speak at the EAAST 2022 conference “Politics of Technoscientific Futures” in Madrid on July 8, 2022, she will contribute to the panel “Datafication Goes Material: Digital Capitalism and the Material Conditions of Existence” with her presentation on “Digital capitalism, Data, and Democratization in Agriculture. Global Patterns and Empirical Insights from Germany“

Program: https://easst2022.org/programglance.asp

[source of picture: unsplash.com / Markus Spiske]