Agroecological transitions: What can sustainability transition frameworks teach us? An ontological and empirical analysis

Abstract

Transitioning toward more sustainable agricultural development paths requires extensive change and not simply marginal technical adjustments, as suggested by a strong conception of agroecology. To deal with transition, we believe that agroecology can be enriched by a deep analysis of sustainability transition frameworks and, conversely, that preexisting theories can be questioned in light of the specificities of agroecological transitions (AET). We first examine some of the main sustainability transition frameworks (resilience of social-ecological systems, institutional analysis and development of social-ecological systems, and socio-technical transition). We identify their ontologies to question their ability to be combined without deep adjustments. In a second step, we analyze how these frameworks have been used and questioned by researchers from the life sciences or social sciences in four AET studies. We find that each framework is relevant in its systemic and dynamic approach to change, but also that there are limits concerning the balance between the various dimensions. The scales and processes linked to AET must be taken into account, as well as the way to jointly consider ecological, socioeconomic, and technological aspects. Moreover, it is clear that problems in dealing with agency are common to these approaches, which influences the way to model change. More broadly, sustainability transition frameworks need to account better for ecological and technological materialities and processes, the importance of emergent organizations in singular situations, and learning processes and the diversity of knowledge dynamics. Doing so is challenging because it requires regrounding theories in empirical observations as well as questioning disciplinary frontiers and ontologies.

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Élevage et territoires : quelles interactions et quelles questions ?

“…Elle repose sur un processus de confrontation de points de vue contrastés et de légitimation, conduisant à la définition de nouvelles formes d'activités (Caron, 2017). Analyser et modéliser ces dynamiques non prédéterminées de transition vers des formes de développement durable des territoires repose sur deux familles d'approches systémiques multi-échelles, l'une se référant au champ sociotechnique, analysant les modalités d'émergence des innovations en privilégiant l'analyse des interactions entre société et techniques, tandis que l'autre se réfère au champ socio écologique, privilégiant les interactions entre dynamique des activités humaines, des écosystèmes et des ressources (Ollivier et al, 2018).…”

Dossier : Perspectives franco-brésiliennes autour de l’agroécologie – Aux frontières de l’agroécologie. Les politiques de recherche de deux instituts agronomiques publics français et brésilien

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