Abstract
In land system science, the issue of land use competition is often explored in the context of future scenarios of the agro-food system. While land system science shares its research topic with the so-called agro-food studies, there is little communication between these two strands of research. In order to explore the reasons for this communicative divide and how it could be bridged, we first critically examine the ontological foundations of futures studies in land system science, arguing that they (a) tend to have a global and remote, rather than a place-specific perspective, (b) typically consider biophysical constraints via according models and (c) build on an “economistic” understanding of social relations, insofar as complex social relations are represented by an economic model. This makes it difficult to relate the futures studies from land system science to the mostly place-specific, participatory and social science-based perspective that agro-food studies provide. Still, we conclude that while land system science could benefit from a more place-specific and social science perspective, agro-food studies could profit from translating biophysical considerations and scenario thinking into a place-specific and participatory perspective. The chapters in this section show some fruitful approaches, which take up a place-specific perspective, without losing the sight of biophysical constraints as well as cross-scalar interactions.
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Lauk, C., Lutz, J. (2016). The Future Is Made. Imagining Feasible Food and Farming Futures in an Unpredictable World. In: Niewöhner, J., et al. Land Use Competition. Human-Environment Interactions, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33628-2_14
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