Abstract
In Western Europe, farmers are embedded in a secular culture, characterized by a worldview where (hu)mans and nature are separated and opposed, capitalism rules exchanges, nature is rationally exploited, and the process of food production was long ignored. This worldview is hegemon and questioned as colonizing. Agroecological approaches and practices are said to enable farmers to entertain fundamentally different relationships with nature through their agricultural activities. Such a decolonized relationship to nature requires that farmers act based on an alternative worldview, holistic and inclusive of people and nature. Yet, we currently have little cultural information about agroecological farmers in Western Europe. We analyse narratives of four farmers to explore and document their worldviews, especially how farmers conceptualize their connection with nature. We ask how the worldview of agroecological farmers in Germany makes use of a decolonized perspective in order to reconstruct their relations to nature. Results show that both colonized and decolonized perspectives of nature co-exist but rather in the form of a struggle between worlds. Our analysis provides evidence of current cultural traits of agroecological farmers in central Germany and reveals fundamental ontological challenges in fostering the agroecological transition.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Adams WM (2020) Geographies of conservation III: Nature’s spaces. In: Progress in human geography 44(4):789–801. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132519837779
Biesecker A, Hofmeister S (2010) Focus: (Re)productivity: sustainable relations both between society and nature and between the genders. Ecol Econ 69(8):1703–1711
Blumer H (1954) What is wrong with social theory? Am Sociol Rev, 18, 3–10
Callicott JB (1988) Agroecology in context. J Agri Ethics 1:3–9
Callicott JB (1990) The metaphysical transition in farming: from the Newtonian-mechanical to the Eltonian ecological. J Agri Ethics 3(1):36–49
Capra F (1984) The turning point. Science, society, and the rising culture. Bantam Books, New York
Catton Jr WR, & Dunlap RE (1978) Environmental sociology: A new paradigm. Am Sociol, 13, 41–49
De Schutter O (2017) The political economy of food systems reform. Eur Rev Agric Econ 44(4):705–731. https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbx009
Domptail S, Rauer S, Müller B, Mühlleitner D, Nuppenau EA (2018) From land restructuration to land grabbing—the political context of agroecology. In: 13th European IFSA Symposium, Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania, 1-5 July 2018
Ellis E, Kaplan J, Fuller D, Vavrus S, Klein Goldewijk K, Verburg P (2013) Used planet: a global history. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 110(20):7978–7985. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1217241110
Escobar A (2008) Territories of difference. Duke University Press, Durham, Place, Movements, Life, Redes
Escobar A (2020) Pluriversal politics. Duke University Press.
Gakpo JO (2020) Relying on agroecology will jeopardize Africa’s food security, ag official warns. Alliance for Science. https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/12/relying-on-agroecology-will-jeopardize-africas-food-security-ag-official-warns/.
Giraldo OF, Rosset PM (2016) Agroecology as a territory in dispute: between institutionality and social movements. J Peasant Stud 45(3):545–564. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2017.1353496
Gliessman S (2016) Transforming food systems with agroecology. Agroecol Sustain Food Syst 40(3):187–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2015.1130765
Guha R, Martínez-Alier J (1997) Varieties of environmentalism: essays North and South. Earthscan, London
Guzmán E, Woodgate G (2015) Transformative agroecology: foundations in agri-cultural practice, agrarian social thought and sociological theory. In: Mendez VE, Bacon CM, Cohen R, Gliessmann SR (eds) Agroecology: a transdisciplinary, participatory and action-oriented approach. CRC Press, Boca Raton, pp 1–24. High Level Expert Forum on how to feed the world in 2050 held in 2009. 2050 high-level expert forum: the forum (fao.org).
Hirsch J (2022). Decolonizing nature? Dominant worldviews and worldviewsof agroecological farmers in Germany to address the global environmental crisis. Master’s thesis. Justus Liebig University of Giessen, September 2022.
Hirsch PD, Norton BG (2012) Thinking like a planet. In: Thompson A, Bendi
IPCC (2019) Refinement to the 2006 IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories. Subject to final copy-edit and layout prior to its final publication. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/06/19R_V0_01_Overview_advance.pdf
Kirschenmann FL (2005) Spirituality in agriculture. In: Leopold Center Conference Papers, 6. http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/leopold_conf/6. Accessed 27 Mai 2019
Kruse J (2015) Qualitative Interviewforschung. Ein integrativer Ansatz. BeltzJuventa, Weinheim/Basel
Levins R (2006) A whole-systems view of agriculture, people, and the rest of nature. In: Cohn A, Cook J, Fernandéz M, Reider R, Steward C (eds) Agroecology and the struggle for food sovereignty in the Americas. Russel Press, Nottingham, UK, pp 34–49
Litfin K (2003) Towards an integral perspective on world politics: secularism, sovereignty and the challenge of global ecology. J Int Stud 32(1):29–56
Litfin K (2011) Thinking like a planet: Gaian politics and the transformation of the world food system. Handbook of Global Environmental Politics, 2nd edn., pp 419–429
Mies M, Shiva V (2014) Ecofeminism. Zed Books (Critique InfluenceChange), London, New York
Meadows DH (2008) System thinking—a primer. White River Junction. Earthscan, London
Merchant C (1980) The death of nature: Women, ecology, and the scientific revolution, Harper Collins publishers, NY
Merchant C (2006) The scientific revolution and the death of nature. Isis 97:513–533
Mignolo WD, Walsh CE (2018) On decoloniality: concepts analytics praxis. Duke University Press, Durham/London
Millenium Ecosystem Assessement (2005) Ecosystems and human well-being: scenarios: findings of the scenarios working group. Island Press, Washington, DC
Moore JW (2015) Capitalism in the web of life: ecology and the accumulation of capital. Verso, London/New York
Muraca B (2016) Relational values: A Whiteheadian alternative for environmental philosophy and global environmental justice. Balkan J Philos 8(1):19–38
Nicholls CI, Altieri MA, Vazquez L (2017) Agroecological principles for the conversion of farming systems. In: Wezel A (ed) Agroecological practices for sustainable agriculture: principles, applications and making the transition. World Scientific, New Jersey/London/Singapore, pp 1–18
Oehen B, Hilbeck A, Herren H, Mueller A, Home R, Hoffman U, Nelson E, Levidow L, Pimbert M (2015) Feeding the people: agroecology for nourishing the world and transforming the agri-food system. IFOAM EU Group, Bonn. Available at: http://www.ifoam-eu.org/sites/default/files/ifoameu_policy_ffe_feedingthepeople.pdf.
Pelluchon C (2021) Ecology as new enlightenment. In: Global Solutions Journal (ed) Global Solutions Journal 2021, The World policy Forum, 7, pp 218-223
Pimbert M (2015) Agroecology as an alternative vision to conventional development and climate-smart agriculture. Development 58(2–3):286–298
Redecker S, Herzig C (2020) The peasant way of a more than radical democracy: the case of La Via Campesina. J Busi Ethics 164(4):657–670, Springer
Rosset PM, Martínez-Torres ME (2012) Rural social movements and agroecology. context, theory, and process. Ecol Soc 17(3):17. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05000-170317
Sanford AW (2011) Ethics, narrative, and agriculture: transforming agricultural practicethrough ecological imagination. J Agric Environ Ethics 24(3):283–303
Siurua H (2006) Nature above people: Rolston and “Fortress” conservation in the south.ethics and the environment, 11(1), 71–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40339115
Tsing Lowenhaupt A (2015) The mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press, Princeton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400873548
Tsing Lowenhaupt A, Swanson HA, Gan E, Bubandt N (2017) Arts of living on a damaged planet: ghosts and monsters of the anthropocene. University of Minnesota Press, Minnesota
Visser O, Sippel SR, Thiemann L (2021) Imprecision farming? Examining the (in)accuracy and risks of digital agriculture. J Rural Stud 86:623–632. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.07.024
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank the interview partners who have opened their doors to us and given us their trust. Thank you for your willingness to participate, your time, your openness, your courage, the lunches, coffees and insights into your lives. Thank you, Prof. Dr. Johanna Jacobi and Dr. Katharina Richter, for sharing your expertise with us and reviewing the book chapter. Thank you for your valuable ideas, your constructive criticism and helpful comments. Parts of this chapter are based on the thesis of Jennifer Hirsch (2022).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Domptail, S.E., Hirsch, J., Nuppenau, EA. (2023). Decolonizing Nature? Worldviews of Agroecological Farmers in Germany to Address the Global Environmental Crisis. In: De Santo, M.K., Domptail, S.E. (eds) Degrowth Decolonization and Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25945-6_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25945-6_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-25944-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-25945-6
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)