A vitalist approach to sugar-cane breeding in Barbados: In the context of the European Union Sugar Reform

Richardson-Ngwenya, Pamela

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.07.005

Cited by 12 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Intuition in this context is to be understood not as guesswork or supernatural inspiration, but as what other writers on skill have described as maximum grip (Ponty ), flow (Csikszentmihalyi ), or being in harmony in the world of action (O'Connor ), in other words the capacity to respond quickly and accurately to the contingencies of the situation ‘without the conscious analytical division of situations into parts and evaluation according to context‐independent rules’ (Flyvbjerg , p. 22). It is important to note that the positive role of intuition in decision‐making has been observed in other contexts such as engineering (Wetmore ), agronomy (Richardson‐Ngwenya ), medical practice (Carmel ), and indigenous hunting (Anderson ; Ingold ; Peloquin and Berkes ). Intuitive action can than be understood as a form of intelligent behaviour, but one which goes beyond cognitivist understandings of humans as rational and calculating decision‐makers (Flyvbjerg , p. 14), an understanding which typically underlies regulatory action.…”

Section: Conclusion: the Dependence Of Care On Situated Expertise Amentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Plants are often seen to defy and indeed overbear human intentions, and control rather than care is more often evoked in relation to plants, as through their capacity for continuous, vigorous and unassisted growth they resist human attempts at containment (Hitchings ; Barker ; Ginn ) . Some authors suggest that the perceived unruliness and obstinacy of plants arises from issues of temporal disjuncture (Bingham ) between plant and human activities (Richardson‐Ngwenya ). Harmonious, or at least accommodating human‐plant interactions, on the other hand, require humans to become attuned to and affected by the multiple temporalities of plants (Cloke and Jones ; Franklin ; Brice ).…”

Section: Experiential Knowledge and Care: A Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

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What Farmers Know: Experiential Knowledge and Care in Vine Growing

Krzywoszynska

2015

Sociologia Ruralis

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This article contributes to the critical debate on the choreographies of care in farming (Law) through an exploration of the inter‐dependence of care and situated expertise in the context of vine work. It argues that care as the totality of those activities which enable the maintenance, continuation, and repair of the farming ‘world’, to paraphrase Fisher and Tronto's classic definition, depends on experiential knowledge. According to Dreyfus and Dreyfus attentiveness, responsiveness, and adaptation to the material environment are characteristic of high levels of expertise. Attentiveness, responsiveness, and adaptation are also what characterises good care (Tronto; Mol). Through an autoethnographic account of acquiring competence in vine work, the article illustrates how through practical engagement with the material and social environment of the farm key elements of the logic of care (Mol) are acquired. In conclusion, the article indicates some consequences of putting experiential knowledge at the heart of multi‐scalar and multi‐temporal cares farmers are increasingly asked to attend to.

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Section: Conclusion: the Dependence Of Care On Situated Expertise Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Experiential Knowledge and Care: A Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

What Farmers Know: Experiential Knowledge and Care in Vine Growing

Krzywoszynska

2015

Sociologia Ruralis

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“…Over the past decade, FPE has embraced new materialisms and relational ontologies (Allen, 2020; Hayes‐Conroy & Hayes‐Conroy, 2013), with studies conceptualizing “affective socio‐nature entanglements” (Singh, 2017, 751) and hybrid assemblages (Richardson‐Ngwenya, 2012). Relational ontologies call for deeper attention to the materialities and the boundaries of community (and of the “human”), which are understood as emergent, socio‐material, and political constructs (Murdoch, 1997; Whatmore, 1999, 2002).…”

Section: Fpe Framework: Core Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Everyday political geographies of community‐building: Exploring the practices of three Zimbabwean permaculture communities

Richardson-Ngwenya

2021

Env Pol Gov

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Permaculture is an approach to sustainable design thinking, agriculture, and community, as well as a globalized movement. This article explores how different practices and processes of permaculture have generated different political registers of “community,” at three permaculture sites in Zimbabwe. Speaking to recent online media that asks “Is permaculture political?,” as well as to the academic literature critiquing localized environmental initiatives as “postpolitical,” the article adopts a feminist political ecology (FPE) framework to discuss two modalities in which the geographies of community‐building can be registered as political. First, I look at how subjectivities and intracommunity power relations have been reshaped through participatory practices of governance, taking on entrenched gender‐ and age‐based power relations in particular. Second, comes the idea of community as a more‐than‐human ontology. An FPE analysis offers an original perspective on how permaculture has become actualized in the Zimbabwean context. The research approach built on Gibson‐Graham's calls to engage performatively with examples of diverse economies and aimed to serve the efforts of these communities in a small way, by celebrating and documenting their activities and creating public media outputs. Contributing to the literature on permaculture, as well as to debates around community‐based environmental movements, an FPE perspective frames these community‐building efforts in terms of everyday political practices and performances. I conclude that while FPE draws attention to these everyday politics, permaculture practitioners actualize them and in doing so, make a much‐needed contribution to cultivating, or “worlding” diverse, more‐than‐human economies.

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“…We advocate for a fundamentally relational and emergent understanding of power that sees it as situated and produced -in innumerable interactions among humans and between humans and the non-human world. We draw from feminist theory and related work by Foucault and others to situate the multiple workings of power within everyday contexts (Allen 2002;Dean 2013;Hinchliffe et al 2013;Jessop 2007;Richardson-Ngwenya 2012;Spencer 2012;Swyngedouw 2004). Importantly, our relational conception of power retains an analytical distinction between human agency as power and power that manifests through network dynamicsknown as 'constitutive power' in the Foucauldian tradition, or, to invoke neo-Marxist traditions, 'structures.'…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theorizing power in political ecology: the 'where' of power in resource governance projects

Ahlborg

Nightingale

2018

Journal of Political Ecology

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Power and politics have been central topics from the early days of Political Ecology. There are different and sometimes conflicting conceptualizations of power in this field that portray power alternatively as a resource, personal attribute or relation. The aim of this article is to contribute to theorizations of power by probing contesting views regarding its role in societal change and by presenting a specific conceptualization of power, one which draws on political ecology and sociotechnical approaches in science and technology studies. We review how power has been conceptualized in the political ecology field and identify three trends that shaped current discussions. We then develop our conceptual discussion and ask explicitly where power emerges in processes of resource governance projects. We identify four locations that we illustrate empirically through an example of rural electrification in Tanzania that aimed at catalyzing social and economic development by providing renewable energy-based electricity services. Our analysis supports the argument that power is relational and productive, and it draws on science and technology studies to bring to the fore the critical role of non-human elements in co-constitution of society – technology – nature. This leads us to see the exercise of power as having contradictory and ambiguous effects. We conclude that by exploring the tension between human agency and constitutive power, we keep the politics alive throughout the analysis and are able to show why intentional choices and actions really matter for how resource governance projects play out in everyday life.

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A vitalist approach to sugar-cane breeding in Barbados: In the context of the European Union Sugar Reform

Cited by 12 publications

References 39 publications

What Farmers Know: Experiential Knowledge and Care in Vine Growing

What Farmers Know: Experiential Knowledge and Care in Vine Growing

Everyday political geographies of community‐building: Exploring the practices of three Zimbabwean permaculture communities

Theorizing power in political ecology: the 'where' of power in resource governance projects

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