Anthropologies of the Future, the Future of Anthropology

Datum
22. Sep­tem­ber – 25. Sep­tem­ber 2021 

3rd SIAC Con­fer­ence Future: Anthro­polo­gies of the Future, the Future of Anthro­pol­o­gy, which will be held in Rome on 22–25 Sep­tem­ber 2021.

We wel­come pro­pos­als for the pan­el Com­mu­ni­ties and the rela­tion with the rur­al envi­ron­ment: post-pan­dem­ic resilient per­spec­tives in agri­cul­ture (see abstract below) at the 3rd SIAC Con­fer­ence Future: Anthro­polo­gies of the Future, the Future of Anthro­pol­o­gy, which will be held in Rome on 22–25 Sep­tem­ber 2021. https://www.siacantropologia.it/panel-en/

Sub­mit a pro­pos­al: https://www.siacantropologia.it/call-for-papers/

Dead­line: 14 June 2021

*** P41: Com­mu­ni­ties and the rela­tion with the rur­al envi­ron­ment: post-pan­dem­ic resilient per­spec­tives in agriculture ***
https://www.siacantropologia.it/p41/

Con­venors:

Mar­ta Vil­la (Uni­ver­sità di Trento),
Fed­eri­co Bigaran (già Diret­tore Uffi­cio Pro­duzioni Bio­logiche Provin­cia di Tren­to), Alessan­dra Guigo­ni (Con­sul­tant at FLAG SSO)
Dis­cus­sant: Francesca Forno (Uni­ver­sità di Trento)

Lan­guage: Ital­iano e inglese

Key­words: Agro-ecol­o­gy, Land­scape, Rur­al Anthro­pol­o­gy, Resilience, Post­pan­dem­ic agriculture
The Covid19 pan­dem­ic has shown that the envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis is hav­ing dra­mat­ic effects on com­mu­ni­ties of the liv­ing. The glob­al­i­ty of phe­nom­e­na makes evi­dent the fragili­ty of sys­tems, the growth of social inequal­i­ties and the emer­gence of new forms of pover­ty. The degra­da­tion and destruc­tion of entire ecosys­tems have seri­ous­ly com­pro­mised the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe and is show­ing us the links that exist between our health and the health of ecosys­tems. The tran­si­tion towards agro-eco­log­i­cal pro­duc­tion mod­els requires a rethink­ing of the roles and func­tions of spaces (urban, peri-urban, rur­al) and of the com­mu­ni­ties that inhab­it them. The land­scape, under­stood as a liv­ing space that inter­acts with ecosys­tems, becomes the place of for­ma­tion and nego­ti­a­tion of rela­tion­ships and mean­ings. The grow­ing expan­sion of urban areas and the aban­don­ment of mar­gin­al areas has com­pressed the spaces and the dif­fer­ent species coex­ist in increas­ing­ly nar­row areas where the dif­fer­ent needs add up that under­mine the bear­ing capac­i­ty of the ter­ri­to­ry. The eco­log­i­cal com­po­nents of a land­scape influ­ence agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion, rethought in rela­tion to its impact and the qual­i­ty and health­i­ness of the prod­ucts. The pan­dem­ic has shown new atten­tion from the pop­u­la­tion towards their health and nutri­tion. The com­mu­ni­ties, forcibly closed in their ter­ri­to­ries, have rein­ter­pret­ed their envi­ron­ments, rela­tions with oth­er species and groups of cit­i­zens have asked for greater atten­tion to the health­i­ness of the ter­ri­to­ries (ref­er­en­dum to encour­age biodis­tricts, strength­en­ing of sol­i­dar­i­ty buy­ing groups, train­ing and infor­ma­tion activ­i­ties ). How can the rela­tion­ship between agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion and land be recon­fig­ured? What spaces can agri­cul­ture occu­py and in what way? What mod­el of inter­de­pen­dence devel­oped dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and will emerge in the future? Are there mod­els in agri­cul­ture that allow a new rela­tion­ship between human beings, liv­ing species and the ter­ri­to­ry and which are not impact­ing? Are there solu­tions adapt­ed from the past that can pro­vide new food for thought to reshape the rela­tion­ship between man-made spaces and nat­ur­al spaces? Are there the­o­ret­i­cal approach­es and prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions of the same that allow the cre­ation of new rela­tion­ships of trust between pro­duc­ers, con­sumers and com­mu­ni­ties? Com­mu­ni­ties and farm­ers are show­ing inno­v­a­tive forms of resilience and researchers (anthro­pol­o­gists, soci­ol­o­gists, his­to­ri­ans) are inves­ti­gat­ing these research fields that show applica­tive answers to the issues raised by the cli­mate and health cri­sis. Our pro­pos­al would like to dis­cuss case stud­ies doc­u­ment­ing research done dur­ing the Phase 1 lock­down or the sub­se­quent peri­od (Phase 2 and cur­rent), show­ing the suc­cess or fail­ure of adap­ta­tion prac­tices to the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, and allow­ing for broad reflec­tion on the pos­si­bil­i­ty to rethink the dia­log­ic rela­tion­ships with the environment.