Sammendrag (engelsk)
In 1871, the first steam plough rolled of the ship that had brought it to Denmark from England and headed to the fields of the first sugar factory. Soon after, with the energy released by burning fossil fuels, the landscape was completely transformed. Today, 150 years later, it is hard to imagine how agriculture on the fertile plains of Denmark and Southern Sweden would work without burning fossil energy. But a path has to be found, for the current system is untenable for the climate, for the many species that have become homeless and even for the farmers themselves.
As we approach a green transition, I think there is a lesson or two to be learned from its historical antithesis, the black transition. What did happen when fossil energy first arrived in Scandinavian agriculture? How was the landscape changed? What did this “fossilisation” mean for agricultural division of labour and for the family farms which has been the backbone of the sector throughout?
In this seminar, I would like to do two things.
First, I will present some answers to the questions above based on my PhD. This will be a brief history of the sugar beet, the fallow land, the central factory and the disappearance of the horse. But it is also an ethnography of why contemporary sugar beet farmers seem more concerned with keeping their fields weed-free than with phasing out oil, fertilisers and pesticides.
Secondly, I would like to discuss why being knowledgeable about the current situation does not seem to be enough to fundamentally challenge it. More than answers, I have questions. What are the forces that marginalise real defossilisation? And what would be the appropriate anthropological response?
This will be a hybrid seminar with in-person attendance at SAI and digitally on Zoom. Zoom-link
Språk
Seminaret vil bli holdt på dansk, norsk, og engelsk ved behov.
Om LandBruk
LandBruk er en gruppe forskere og studenter med interesse for antropologiske perspektiver på jordbruk og arealkonflikter i Norden, tilknyttet forskningsgruppen NorLab (Nordisk Laboratorium).