Suchergebnisse

Climate change is putting Colombian agriculture under significant stress and, if no adaptation is made, the latter will be severely impacted during the next decades. Ramirez-Villegas et al. (2012) set out a government-led, top-down, techno-scientific proposal for a way forward by which Colombian agriculture could adapt to climate change. However, this proposal largely overlooks the root causes of vulnerability of Colombian agriculture, and of smallholders in particular. I discuss some of the hidden assumptions underpinning this proposal and of the arguments employed by Ramirez-Villegas et al., based on existing literature on Colombian agriculture and the wider scientific debate on adaptation to climate change. While technical measures may play an important role in the adaptation of Colombian agriculture to climate change, I question whether these actions alone truly represent priority issues, especially for smallholders. I suggest that by i) looking at vulnerability before adaptation, ii) contextualising climate change as one of multiple exposures, and iii) truly putting smallholders at the centre of adaptation, i.e. to learn about and with them, different and perhaps more urgent priorities for action can be identified. Ultimately, I argue that what is at stake is not only a list of adaptation measures but, more importantly, the scientific approach from which priorities for action are identified. In this respect, I propose that transformative rather than technical fix adaptation represents a better approach for Colombian agriculture and smallholders in particular, in the face of climate change.

When the civil society makes 'transition' its label, it cannot be assumed that different civil society actors share compatible varieties of localist or radical transformationists discourses. This study has comparatively analyzed the discourses in four civil society sustainability transition proposals using a corpus-based methodology. We found that the proposals are similar as they identify the economy as an object and an entry point for transition, frame the economy as embedded in the socio–ecological system, ascribe agency to grassroots movements for transitions from the bottom–up. We also found crucial differences among the discourses regarding the role of the State, the degree of reform or radical innovation, the degree of imaginative character of the sustainability vision, the degree of opposition to capitalism. We suggest that insights on how the civil society employs notions of transition with respect to the themes of politics, emotions and place can help advance theorizations and practices of societal sustainability transitions led by the civil society.

La Economía Circular, tal y como se recoge con mayor frecuencia en las políticas urbanas, gubernamentales y en el debate científico, suele presentarse como transformadora, pero es reformista en el mejor de los casos. En realidad, la Economía Circular es tan seductora exactamente porque promete la reducción del impacto ambiental sin cuestionar los fundamentos culturales e institucionales de la economía tal y como las conocemos. En este breve artículo, desvelo las trampas medioambientales, socioeconómicas y de gestión de la Economía Circular, y concluyo sugiriendo tres áreas de intervención para abordarlas: combatir seriamente la actividad ilícita e ilegal en sectores clave y en lo que respecta a la mano de obra, dar más importancia a los principios de retención de valor de rechazar, reducir y reutilizar, y entablar un debate político serio y democrático sobre el camino hacia el que debe encaminarse una Economía Circular.

The peace agreement of 2016 was received with substantial indifference by a large part of the Colombian population. This article suggests that the aforementioned indifference is related to rooted fractures in the Colombian Society. Four thesis against indifference are put as follows: (i) the limitations of the peace agreement do not alter its potential for change; (ii) pressure from the civil society and the public can hold those in power accountable for the realisation of the peace agreement; (iii) the civil society and the public can appropriate the peace process and have a positive incidence in the peacebuilding; (iv) peacebuilding is the opportunity of not only to build peace, but also to newly shape a more diverse, inclusive, democratic, dignifying and environmentally-conscious Colombia. ; El acuerdo de paz del 2016 fue recibido con indiferencia por gran parte de la población colombiana, con ello en mente, el presente texto sugiere que la indiferencia tiene que ver con fracturas estructurales en la sociedad. Se presentan cuatro tesis contra la indiferencia: (a) las limitaciones del acuerdo de paz no eliminan su potencial de generar cambio; (b) la presión de la sociedad civil puede responsabilizar a los que están en poder por la realización del acuerdo de paz; (c) la sociedad civil puede apropiarse del proceso de paz e influir en su construcción; (d) la construcción de la paz es una oportunidad para dar forma a un país más diverso, inclusivo, democrático, digno y ambientalmente consciente.

Policy action for sustainability transformation faces inherent and ever-present sources of conflict, pushback, and resistance (i.e., discord). However, conceptual frameworks and policy prescriptions for sustainability transformations often reflect an undue image of accord. This involves simplified assumptions about consensus, steering, friction, discreteness, and additiveness of policy action, conferring an unrealistic view of the potential to deliberately realize transformation. Instead, negotiating discord through continuously finding partial political settlements among divided actors needs to become a key focus of policy action for sustainability transformations. Doing so can help to navigate deeply political settings through imperfect but workable steps that loosen deadlock, generate momentum for further policy action, and avoid complete derailment of transformation agendas when discord arises.

This study examines how vendors, customers, and organizers socially construct agroecological farmers markets (FM) in Bogotá. Using a multi-method approach entailing structured and unstructured interviews, descriptive statistics, and ethnographic content analysis, the study shows how the actors situate FM in relation to debates on sustainability, rural development, and alternative agri-food systems in Colombia. The results demonstrate that vendors, customers, and organizers often hold largely similar perspectives on FM and their relations with the dominant food system. Specifically, they conceive of FM as an alternative to the dominant food system and experience them as spaces in which utilitarian relations are put aside in favour of alternative values and practices, which include care for other human and non-human beings and limited economic competition. Furthermore, FM simultaneously function as protective spaces for peasant knowledge and culture and connectors between rurality and urbanity. Finally, this study shows that FM cannot be fully understood within the sectoral scope of sustainable agriculture, or rural development; rather, they represent an attempt to lay the foundations of a more conscious society that vendors, customers, and organizers want to help come into being.

When the civil society makes 'transition' its label, it cannot be assumed that different civil society actors share compatible varieties of localist or radical transformationists discourses. This study has comparatively analyzed the discourses in four civil society sustainability transition proposals using a corpus-based methodology. We found that the proposals are similar as they identify the economy as an object and an entry point for transition, frame the economy as embedded in the socio–ecological system, ascribe agency to grassroots movements for transitions from the bottom–up. We also found crucial differences among the discourses regarding the role of the State, the degree of reform or radical innovation, the degree of imaginative character of the sustainability vision, the degree of opposition to capitalism. We suggest that insights on how the civil society employs notions of transition with respect to the themes of politics, emotions and place can help advance theorizations and practices of societal sustainability transitions led by the civil society.

When the civil society makes 'transition' its label, it cannot be assumed that different civil society actors share compatible varieties of localist or radical transformationists discourses. This study has comparatively analyzed the discourses in four civil society sustainability transition proposals using a corpus-based methodology. We found that the proposals are similar as they identify the economy as an object and an entry point for transition, frame the economy as embedded in the socio–ecological system, ascribe agency to grassroots movements for transitions from the bottom–up. We also found crucial differences among the discourses regarding the role of the State, the degree of reform or radical innovation, the degree of imaginative character of the sustainability vision, the degree of opposition to capitalism. We suggest that insights on how the civil society employs notions of transition with respect to the themes of politics, emotions and place can help advance theorizations and practices of societal sustainability transitions led by the civil society.