Call for papers: 17th conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics

Economies for life: Alliances for practicing ecological economics in a world in transition

October 23-28, 2023, University of Magdalena, Santa Marta, Colombia

Deadline for submitting abstracts 2^nd May 2023

To submit your abstract: https://2023.isecoeco.org/

Panel: Substantive Economics and Agroecological Experiments: Changing Knowledge-Policy Contents and Relationships (Regular Track in English: Agroecology, Agroecological knowledge systems, Agrifood systems).

Agroecology, to many who are willing to see the substantive economics of modern agrifood systems, has definitely passed the proof of concept stage. Despite this, it has not been institutionalized in national and international policies for sustainable agrifood systems. The papers in this track explore why. They ask how a substantive understanding of the economy arising from several agroecological experiments can contribute to new ways of knowing and governing not just agrifood systems but the overarching social ecological economic order.

Evidence from agroecology yield increasing awareness and possible alternative models that look beyond conventional conceptualizations of labour and land productivity.  There is evidence that tropical agriculture systems exhibit a Lewis trap of surplus labour leading to low (energy/calorie) productivity (despite high land productivity), even as they are governed by policies formulated to enable the desirable Lewis path. The much desired structural transformation has not happened in the tropical agriculture production systems, and countries remain predominantly agrarian. As theorized based on the development experience of the Western/Northern temperate agriculture systems, contributions of labour and land productivity for agricultural and economic growth and for food security are ubiquitous today.  Yet, multiple and higher order interactions in agroecological systems demand new models, concepts and theories of production, productivity, interactions and relations.

We invite papers in this track, that point to the material intensity, physical trade balance and social metabolism of agroecological systems. The key argument is that little can be achieved to transform energy guzzling agriculture maintained by unsustainable fossil fuel subsidies, as long as agriculture is conceptualized and performance assessed exclusively in the formalism of  mainstream economics.   The papers may explore how on-going agroecological transformations and their political fallouts are being questioned from mainstream neoclassical/development economics lens, even as communities, their solidarity economics and local governments actuate social provisioning and ecological justice, and cultivate the norm making and norm changing capacities of communities. The papers can analyse the substantive economics of the production and productivity, social and ecological wellbeing, justice and diversity outcomes achieved in agroecological systems.

We invite papers that explore four mutually complementing themes, on:

1. How agroecology presents opportunities to revise concepts of productivity, input intensity and ecological intensity and wellbeing, as well as opportunities for deliberating and creating new ways of mass movement, policy engagement and institutionalization of agroecology;
2. How meso level agroecological experiments offer lessons on the economy as an institutional system embedded in larger social and environmental dynamics, and how clear substantive economic evaluation of tangible and intangible resources and property rights regimes need to be included in mainstream agrifood knowledge systems and in policy mechanisms; )
3. How prevalent knowledge-policy relationships evident in agrifood systems are inimical to agroecological systems, human and planetary health, and how different strategies including theoretical and conceptual re-framings have been deliberated and used to counter these knowledge-policy contents and directions;
4. How agroecological systems are part of a holistic post-growth scenario, with local and meso-level value networks providing lessons for new agricultural knowledge, science and technology and for robust deliberative policy making and implementing mechanisms that map and measure key interactions and relations and remain accountable and liable for unsustainable outcomes and consequences.

Chairs:  Rajeswari S. Raina (Shiv Nadar IoE, Delhi NCR, India), Marie Derville (ENSFEA, University of Toulouse, France), Antje Linkenbach (ICAS:MP, and Erfurt University Germany), Leon Enrique Avila (Universidad Intercultural de Chiapas, Mexico).

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