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Events

Talk: A proposal for transitioning to a caring degrowth society

by BioMat

Anna Saave will hold a talk on the topic of “care work, ecofeminist degrowth and a feminist green new deal” at Kule institute’s speaker series on ecofeminist perspectives on degrowth and climate resilience at the University of Alberta on May 19, 2022.

Title of Anna’s talk:  The Care-Tax – A proposal for transitioning to a caring degrowth society.

Link to the event page: https://www.ualberta.ca/kule-institute/news-events/kias-news-collection/2022/may/kule_scholars_may_speaker_series.html

Link to the recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0i1A7nuRLY

 

[source of picture: pexels.com / Clement Percheron]

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Events

Talk: Feminist Futures? at taz.lab 2022

by BioMat

Anna Saave will hold a talk on the topic of “(De-)Growth and Feminist Futures” together with Corinna Dengler at the taz.lab 2022 on April 30, 2022.

Title of Anna’s talk: “Towards an ecofeminist notion of class. How to move beyond the growth paradigm by centering meta-industrial labor” / “Für einen ökofeministischen Klassenbegriff. Wie sich mit meta-industrieller Arbeit nicht-nachhaltiges Wachstum überwinden lässt“

Link to the event page: https://taz.de/programm/2022/tazlab2022/de/events/1228.html

Recording is available through the taz.lab Mediathek: https://youtu.be/vSwLztpmeNU

 

[source of picture: pexels.com / Leonid Danilov]

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Events

(Online) Workshop: Green Governance and the Bioeconomy – critical perspectives on international environmental policy

by BioMat

Registration: to receive further information on the program and a Zoom link to the event, please write to camila.moreno@hu.berlin.de before April 5th, 18:00.

This workshop proposes a critical reflection over the current critical junctures in international environmental policy frameworks. Exploring the convergence of green governance and the bioeconomy, contributions from presenters aim to problematize and foster a critical discussion of the bioeconomy in the context of the current policy agenda, exploring the rationale and mechanisms embedded in green recovery plans, green deals and how these interface with the broader global environmental governance regime. Key topics to be addressed include the financialization of nature, inequality and social inclusion, regulation, and the role of nation states in this process. The workshop is hosted by BioMaterialities Research Group at Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin and the Socio-Environmental Platform of the BRICS Policy Center (Brazil).

 

Program Overview

14:00-14:10_Welcome and Introduction – Dr. Sarah Hackfort, Project Leader, BioMaterialities

(Part 1)
How and to what extent is the bioeconomy bounded by the meta-framework of global environmental governance?

14:10-14:20_ Scenario Note: Green Deals and the mandate of ‘integrate to deliver’: into the critical decade 2021-2030 – Dr. Camila Moreno, Post-doctoral researcher, BioMaterialites

14:20-14:50_ Key Note: Value Chains in Amazonian Frontiers. Green Bonds and (Co)Modification of Nature (s) through Global – Prof. Dr. Marcela Vecchione, Professor at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), Centre of Advanced Amazonian Studies (NAEA). Post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Development Policy (IOB), at the University of Antwerpen (Belgium); member of the Biodiversa funded project Environmental Policy Instruments Across Commodity Chains (EPICC)

Locking values for the future: Green Bonds and (Co)Modification of Nature (s) through Global Value Chains in Amazonian Frontiers Green finance in general, and green bonds in specific, are a cornerstone for the Green Transition policies and are increasingly acknowledged as a key mechanism to bring about the Bioeconomy.

If in the past, green bonds had little accreditation and consequently less “value-added” in financial markets, recently, green bonds have been burgeoning capital mobilization for the purpose of expanding and deep territorialization of various extractive industries segments. The way such movement works is twofold. At the same time land, biodiversity and traditional knowledge are locked in an investment through which a future of conservation is projected, their degradation is meticulously allowed in a form of zoning so that the additionality of the investment can be designed through land use management in the present. As an empirical example of how the bioeconomy materializes over lands and territories, this presentation intends to dialogue about the nature of green bonds as an investment and as a tool for zoning territories by looking at two specific cases in Brazilian Amazonian frontiers, both in the state of Pará – one for soya, and the other for eucalyptus. In this sense, the aim here is not just to show patterns of nature appropriation and commodification, but to reflect on patterns of how nature is being defined, enclosed, and modified to input value in the spheres of circulation turning it into an asset within the larger circuits of the bioeocomy. Such modification is not just discursive – it comprises territorialized and materialized global value chain practices and varied actors in multiple scales that are inscribed over territories of life(ways) producing a secure, stable, and highly controlled value reserve while taking advantage of a conservation chain that is only possible because of local and collective communities’ ways of existing.

We can draw from these questions to spark discussion:

1. In the context of a global bioeconomy in the making, what is the nature of Green Bonds and what is the nature they want to project (or keep in place) so that production, circulation (including trading, although not exclusively) and consumption can be allegedly sustainable?

2. How could a territorialized and materialized critique of the Green Bonds could bring more elements to critical stands on assetization overcoming limits of either global or national level political economy analysis?

3.How the process of financialization of nature and the agenda of moving forward a global bioeconomy intersect/converge?

14:50-15:00_Commentary – Prof. Dr. Maria Backhouse, BioInequalities, Jena University (Tbc)

15:00-15:10_ Break

(Part 2)
A critical perspective on the embedded assumptions of integrating this “meta” framework (such as the financialization of nature) and its consequences, presenting and problematizing its impacts and contested narratives.

15:10-15:20_ Structural Inequalities: Net Zero and Nature-Based Solutions – Maureen Santos, Coordinator of the Socio-Environmental Platform of BRICS Policy Center.

  • Maureen Santos is the coordinator of the socio-environmental platform of the BRICS policy center and teaches at the international relations graduate program of PUC-RJ University. Previously, she wasprogram coordinator for environmental and social justice in the office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Brazil. She holds a Master’s degree in Political Sciences by IFCS/UFRJ and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations by Universidade Estácio de Sá. Shemonitors the negotiations of the UN Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in particular the issues of Adaptation and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). She organized research groups on the High Level Panel of Food Security of FAO, that recently produced a study on climate change and food security.

15:20-15:35_ Social Inclusion in Bioeconomy Solutions – Prof. Dr. Deborah Delgado, Associate Professor and Researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru

  • Dr. Delgado is an Associate Professor and Researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru where she directs the MA on Water Management. She has extensive experience in environmental governance and climate policy, particularly regarding Indigenous Peoples and Tropical Forests. She has conducted interdisciplinary research and extended fieldwork following indigenous social movements, human and environmental rights, natural resources management. During the last 10 years, she has followed the UNFCCC process as a multiscaled agenda; as a policy expert, she has worked as an advisor to the Peruvian negotiators on REDD policy and IP rights issues.

15:35-15:45_Questions and Answers

15:45-16:00_Commentary – Contours of Historical-Materialist Policy Analysis – Prof. Dr. Ulrich Brand. Prof. Brand will comment on the prior presentations will sum up key questions and ideas to debate further, as well as links to his historical-materialist policy analysis framework.

  • Prof. Brand is Professor of International Politics at the Faculty of Social Sciences. His main research interests are the crisis of liberal globalisation, (global) social- ecological topics like resource politics and Green Economy, critical state and governance studies and Latin America. Together with Markus Wissen, he introduced the concept of the “imperial mode of living”; his research on “degrowth” is linked to emerging debates on “post-growth cities”. Recently, he led two research projects on trade unions and social-ecological transformation. Moreover, Brand is scientific coordinator of the Research Network on Latin America at the University of Vienna.

Historical-materialist policy analysis (HMPA) aims at analyzing how specific policies are formulated against the background of essentially competing and contradictory interests of different social forces. It examines how, if at all, these policies contribute to societal reproduction and the regulation of social contradictions and crisis tendencies. This article provides a concise introduction to HMPA as well as to the key theoretical concepts and perspectives underpinning its policy concept. Against this background, it further elaborates on how to operationalize HMPA for empirical research, drawing on but also going beyond the three-step process of context-, actors- and process-analysis suggested by the Research Group ‘State Project Europe’. In this way, we seek to enhance the analytical and methodological repertoire of historical materialist political science, and at the same time open up new analytical perspectives within the comprehensive field of critical policy analysis.

Full reference article available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19460171.2021.1947864

16:00-16:15_ Reaction from presenters

(Part 3)
Regarding the alignment with the meta-framework, its impacts and contested narratives discussed above (part 1 and 2), what is the role of Nation States in moving forward a Green Deal/Bioeconomy and what can we explore out of its contradictions? What would be alternative paths for bioeconomy policy making?

16:15-16:55_Debate with all participants of the workshop: questions, answers, comments

16:55-17:00_Wrap-up and end of the event

 

[source of picture: pexels.com]

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Events

Public Lecture Series: Automation, Post-Scarcity, and Work—What is at Stake for Green Capitalist Projects? A Conversation with Aaron Benanav

by BioMat

The talk is the first event of the Public Lecture Series
High-Tech Valorization of Nature: Work, (Re)production, Technology, and Politics in Green Capitalist Projects

Link for the Zoom Event: https://hu-berlin.zoom.us/j/69481226452

Recording/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxxUxX8XRG0

 

Aaron Benanav’s work deals with questions of automation, global unemployment, and economic development. In Automation and the Future of Work he challenges the popular argument that ‘the rise of the robots’ will bring an end to work, heralding either a realm of freedom or mass unemployment and misery for all. Instead, Benanav identifies eco­no­mic structures that drive both the loss of jobs (or slower creation of new jobs) and technological development. Based on these long-term trends, he asks: How would a post-scarcity society be organized?

In this event, we ask Aaron Benanav to extend his analysis to help us think about the valorization of nature in green capitalist projects such as the ‘Bioeconomy’, including biotechnology, high-tech forestry, agriculture, and food production. We will discuss how the trends Benanav identifies in global economies relate to developments in our use of nature, human work, and ideas about green growth. We will also ask what possi­bilities and challenges new technologies and economic structures pose for a different society organized around human needs rather than profits.

Aaron Benanav is the author of Automation and the Future of Work. He is currently a researcher at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In August 2022, Benanav will begin a new position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Socio­lo­gy at Syracuse University, where he will also serve as one of the core faculty members at SU’s Auto­no­mous Systems Policy Institute.

The Public Lecture Series is hosted by the BioMaterialities Research Group at Humboldt University. The conversation with Aaron Benanav will be led by Miriam Boyer and Johannes Fehrle.

 

[source of picture: pexels.com]

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Events

Conference: Transformation and Sustainability Conflicts (online and in presence)

by BioMat

Louisa Prause will hold a panel talk at the spring conference of the German Society for Sociology on the topic of “Transformation and sustainability conflicts” at the Europa-Universität Flensburg, on April 1st 2022.

Titel of Louisa Prause’s talk: >>„Program the change you want to see“? Digitalisierung und neue Formen des Widerstands in Konflikten um die Agrarwende in Deutschland<<

Link: https://www.uni-flensburg.de/nec/termine?sword_list%5B0%5D=Norbert&sword_list%5B1%5D=schutz&no_cache=1

Registration: Please register your participation by March 25, 2022 with Melanie Strzelecki at the following email address: Melanie.Strzelecki@uni-flensburg.de

Webex link for online participation: https://uni-flensburg.webex.com/meet/umweltsoziologie

Participation in the conference is possible in presence and digitally. The current protective measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic of the state of Schleswig-Holstein apply to the face-to-face event.

 

[source of picture: pexels.com]

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Events

Conference in Dakar: Struggles for ‘democracy’ in Africa before and during the pandemic – Encounters from the Global North and South

by BioMat

Louisa Prause is organizing the ‘Point Sud conference’  in Dakar at the University of Cheikh Anta Diop on the topic of “Struggles for ‘democracy’ in Africa before and during the pandemic – Encounters from the Global North and South”.

 

Link: https://dezim-institut.de/veranstaltungen/point-sud-conference/

 

[Bildquelle: unsplash.com]

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Events

Sarah Hackfort: A talk on “Neue Policy Probleme, neue Interdependenzen in der Lösung komplexer Umweltprobleme?”

by BioMat

Sarah Hackfort gives a talk on the 17. September 2021 at the DVPW Kongress on the topic: “Neue Policy Probleme, neue Interdependenzen in der Lösung komplexer Umweltprobleme? Politische Konfliktlinien und politikfeldübergreifende Wechselwirkungen in der Lösung komplexer Umweltprobleme”.

Panel: Dr. Colette Vogeler (TU Braunschweig), Dr. Florence Metz (University of Twente), Simon Schaub (Universität Heidelberg)

Link: https://www.dvpw.de/kongress

 

[source of picture: pixabay.com]

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Events

Group Research “The Promise of All Things Green: The Construction of Sustainability and Feasibility of Biomass use in the German Bioeconomy”

by BioMat

July 6, 2021, Miriam Boyer and Sarah Hackfort present group research “The Promise of All Things Green: The Construction of Sustainability and Feasibility of Biomass use in the German Bioeconomy” at the International Online Joint Conference “Building Alternative Livelihoods in times of ecological and political crisis” of the international degrowth research networks, the International Society for Ecological Economics and the European Society for Ecological Economics,  hosted by University of Manchester, UK.

Link: https://www.isee-esee-degrowth2021.net/

[source of picture: pixabay.com]

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Events

Alternative innovations for the Bioeconomy

by BioMat

Project leaders Sarah Hackfort and Miriam Boyer present on the topic: Alternative innovations for the bioeconomy – Or what kind of technologies do we need for a just socio-ecological transformation?

The current implementation of the innovation-driven and technology-centered bioeconomy policies shows a bias in the funding of research and innovation: research on technologies, which non-governmental organisations and social movements with focus on environmental justice, food sovereignty, or human rights consider important, are largely not funded. The debate on the role of technology for a just society is not new: In the past, different actors including academia and civil society groups have pushed debates on the role of technological innovation for just social changes and for environmental protection. Taking up on this, we would like to address the following questions: What kind of bioeconomy do we want? Which kind of technologies do we need for this? What do we mean by “innovation”? What would that mean for the shape of and struggles around the funding policies for research and innovation? What political instruments would be necessary in order to guarantee not only the participation of different and so far largely excluded actors in discussions rounds but to enable them to shape and influence research policies? What would that imply for ownership structures?

We invite speakers with corresponding experiences and expertise in the field to talk about what they understand as alternative technologies for a bioeconomy and how they would evaluate innovations for a just socio-ecological transformation.

 

The event will be held in English

May 07th, 2021, 10-12 a.m. CET

Online via Zoom*: registration and link: bioinequalities@uni-jena.de

 

Introduction/Chair: Rosa Lehmann (University of Heidelberg), Maria Backhouse (FSU Jena, Germany)

  • Steffi Ober (NABU e.V., Berlin, Germany): The Bioeconomy – a (missed) opportunity for a societal transformation to sustainability?
  • Willington Ortiz (Wuppertal Institute, Germany): Grassroots innovations in sustainable family farming. How can they contribute to socio-ecological transformations?
  • Miriam Boyer & Sarah Hackfort (HU Berlin, Germany): Are Other Ways of Producing Viable? Mapping Technological and Property Alternatives in the Bioeconomy

[source of picture: pixabay.com]

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