sustainable development

Agriculture in Europe: Power and Marginalization Dynamics

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By: Kaya Schwemmlein

(…) there is no relationship of power without its corresponding constitution of a field of knowledge, no relationship of knowledge that doesn’t imply and constitute at the same time relationships of power” (Foucault, 1978)

Agriculture in Europe, as a practice and a field of knowledge, has been inextricably linked to the concept of development used in Western society since the Industrial Revolution (late 18th and 19th centuries). Historically speaking, the process of development has its roots in a patriarchal project that claims to satisfy society’s needs and achieve constant progress by commodification of commons, by accumulation of capital and by increase of private ownership, profits and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (e.g., Watson, 2004; Shiva, 1988). Development in the agricultural sector, then, translates into a constant demand for space, resources and capital for a steady production and accumulation of food that systematically demands the privatization of a vast number of common resources (i.e., seeds and water) and demands a constant flow of cheap labor and “available” land (e.g., Nolte et al., 2016, Holt-Giménez, 2017).

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“We are what we eat”, but do we know what we are eating?

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By: Nicoletta Moschini

“From beasts we scorn as soulless,
in forest, field and den,
the cry goes up to witness
the soullessness of men.”
M. Frida Hartley

We are all eyewitnesses to a dystopian historical period in which there are more overweight than undernourished people. We prefer to consume water in plastic bottles rather than tap water. Entire geographic areas of Europe, especially southern Portugal, Italy, and Spain, are at high risk of desertification, and globally, 2 billion people have difficult access to safe water sources. Yet, the global average water footprint to produce 1 kilogram of beef is 15,415 liters, meaning 2,400 liters to make a single hamburger – the equivalent of about 3 months of showers. Worldwide, 900 million people are in a state of severe food insecurity. Yet, the world’s cattle require an amount of calories equivalent to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion humans. Moreover, our Planet’s habitable land is mainly used for agriculture, with nearly 80% of farmland linked to meat and dairy production. Yet, livestock produces less than 20% of the world’s supply of calories.

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A CLAN for Human-Animal Studies? Opportunities and challenges of establishing the field – Part 3 

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By: Verónica Policarpo

**A versão portuguesa dos 3 posts pode ser consultada aqui.

This is the last post of a series of three in which I proposed myself to reflect upon the main opportunities and challenges implied in the establishment of the field of Human-Animal Studies (HAS) in Portugal, and the role of the HAS-Hub in that process. In the first part, I recollected the strengths of international networks and funding. In the second part, I dived into the powers of connecting in our own mother tongue. Finally, in this third and last post, I will shortly discuss the major threats that, from my point of view, the HAS-Hub may face in the near future, as well as the emerging opportunities.

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A CLAN for Human-Animal Studies? Opportunities and challenges of establishing the field in Portugal – Part 2

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Por: Verónica Policarpo

**A versão portuguesa dos 3 posts pode ser consultada aqui.

For the last four years, the Human-Animal Studies Hub (hereafter, HAS-Hub) has brought together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds and institutions, under a common interest: the critical appraisal of the multiple and systemic ways through which humans have exploited nonhuman animals, and an ethical commitment to contribute to diminish their suffering. In this post, I resume the reflection initiated here about this process. In the first part, I leaned over the rising strengths of international networks and collaborations, as well as the angular role of funding to foster research, training and dissemination. In this second part, I wish to highlight – and honour – the power of connecting and working in our mother tongue. Building a HAS network that speaks, not only but also, in Portuguese is a major mission of the HAS-Hub. I will try to show the role of post-graduate education in this process, in particular the post-graduate course Animais e Sociedade. This reflection will not end today, though. In a future third and last part, I will highlight what are, from my point of view, the major threats that the HAS-Hub faces in the near future, as well as emerging opportunities.

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A CLAN for Human-Animal Studies? Opportunities and challenges of establishing the field in Portugal – Part 1

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By: Verónica Policarpo

**A versão portuguesa dos 3 posts pode ser consultada aqui.

Three sociologists meet at a conference in Athens

In September 2017, the congress of the European Sociological Association was held in legendary Athens. It was a very hot day, and as it happens to me often, my presentation was on the very last day of the conference, on the very last time slot, late in the day. Feeling all the tiredness that comes after a long week of one of these big conferences, I headed to the venue early in the morning, after a sleepless night. I had browsed the conference program several times, looking for presentations that had the word “animal”, or any other related, in the title or abstract. I had found only three. One of them was exactly on the very same panel, and the very same day, in which I was going to present my own work. Moreover, it was about a topic very dear to me: death and mourning for a companion animal.

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Second Edition of the Lisbon Early-Career Workshop in Urban Studies 2022

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By: Luisa Rossini

The Urban Transitions Hub (as part of the SHIFT research group) hosted, from the 23rd to the 25th of November 2022, at ICS-ULisboa, the second edition of the Lisbon Early-Career Workshop in Urban Studies, with the support of the AESOP Young Academics Network. 16 PhD students and early-career scholars from all over Europe and abroad gathered for the opportunity to present and discuss their research projects and/or findings during a 3-day event organized as a space of exchange, debate and learning. The topic for this second edition was “Social Mobilisations and Planning through Crisis.”

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Screening the Precarious Spaces of Home Across Europe

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By: Anna Viola Sborgi

On September 19, 2022, a public screening entitled Espaços Precários da Habitação na Europa – Precarious Homes Across Europe took place at ICS-ULisboa. The screening showcased work of four emerging women filmmakers: Ayo Akingbade’s Dear Babylon (2019, United Kingdom), Leonor Teles’s Cães que Ladram aos Pássaros (2019, Portugal), Laura Kavanagh’s No Place (2019, Ireland and United Kingdom) and Margarida Leitão’s Gipsofila (Portugal, 2015). After watching the films, filmmaker Margarida Leitão and researchers Roberto Falanga and Mariana Liz joined me in an interdisciplinary conversation on cities, their inhabitants, gentrification and film. Members of the audience, which included participants in the Cinema e Ciências Sociais Summer School that was taking place at ICS-ULisboa in those very days, also asked questions and contributed to the discussion.

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De qué hablamos cuando hablamos de Sociología Ambiental

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Por: Antonio Aledo

Estoy realizando una estancia académica en el Instituto de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad de Lisboa en el equipo de investigación liderado por la Dra. Luisa Schmidt y con el apoyo de la Dra. Carla Gomes. Esta estancia está financiada por el Ministerio de Universidades del Gobierno de España dentro del Programa de Estancias de Movilidad de Investigadores en Centros Extranjeros. La preparación de un manual de sociología ambiental es uno de los objetivos principales de esta estancia. En los próximos párrafos resumo los principios fundamentales sobre los que se ha construido la sociología ambiental, que van a dirigir los contenidos de este manual.

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Co-Produção: A Inteligência Humana ao Serviço das Nossas Cidades

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Por: Diogo Martins

Estamos sempre a falar em cidades mais inteligentes, com sensores, inteligência artificial, com software que irá gerir tudo ao pormenor, com tecnologia que nós, hoje, não conhecemos. Mas em que medida toda esta tecnologia traz benefícios às pessoas que habitam e frequentam as cidades? E estaremos a tirar partido da inteligência dessas pessoas para melhorar as nossas cidades?

A minha proposta é explorarmos formas de voltar às pessoas, sem deixarmos de evoluir e usar tecnologia. A co-produção é ainda pouco utilizada no nosso dia-a-dia e por isso não vemos efeitos práticos disso nas nossas cidades com a frequência que é desejável.

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Participatory Rural Appraisal for the municipality of Odemira – The characterisation of a rural environment

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Por: Kaya Schwemmlein , Lanka Horstink & Miguel Encarnação

Source: Project logo.

Drawing upon the challenge of creating inclusive, regenerative, and sustainable food systems, it is very important to address not only questions related to sustainable agricultural practices, but also issues regarding power asymmetries that can be found along the supply chain.

The European Union (EU), in its “Farm to Fork Strategy”, maintains that it is vital to “preserve affordability of food while generating fairer economic returns, fostering competitiveness of the EU supply sector and promoting fair trade”. Nonetheless, several studies, journalistic pieces and other EU documents (such as the EU´s Inception Impact Assessment) have already clearly acknowledged the existing challenge of imperfect competition : one that creates disparities in market power across the entire food chain, from production to retail.

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