| 1. |
- Alarcón Ferrari, Cristián
(författare)
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Action research for emancipation: Social-ecological relations, commoning and basic conceptual questions
- 2016
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Ingår i: Commons, Sustainability, Democratization : Action Research and the Basic Renewal of Society. - 9781138124776 ; :19, s. 53-73
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Critical Utopian Action Research as a practical working method. Practically, it differs from many other kinds of Action Research due to its specific emphasis on a workshop method. It combines different kinds of workshops that in their basic structures, however, all could be seen as variations of the logic of Future Creating Workshops. The Research Workshop is conceptualised as a way to expand and strengthen the utopian-based ideas, projects and initiatives, primarily with regard to their knowledge and practical perspectives. Democratisation has vanished from the dominating political and societal agenda, at least in a sense that transcends democracy as a formalelectoral and parliamentary form of decision-making. This shift is closely connected to the increase in the influence of neoliberalism, starting back in the 1960s and 1970s and eventually gaining a hegemonic position as the dominant political-economic ideology and practice at a societal level.
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| 2. |
- Alarcon Ferrari, Cristian
(författare)
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Agrarian questions, digitalisation of the countryside, immigrant labour in agriculture and the official discourses on rural development in the Uppsala region, Sweden
- 2021
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Ingår i: Rivista di economia agraria. - 0035-6190 .- 2281-1559. ; 76, s. 19-32
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper focuses on the Uppsala region of Sweden to analyse the dynamics of new agrarian questions intersecting with the prospects for immigrants to work in agriculture in the region. The paper seeks to explore the role of labour skills, agricultural automation and digitalisation of rural areas in local patterns of agrarian change and why and how they became barriers for the integration of immigrants through agricultural jobs in the region. The paper starts by laying out some basic conceptual insights to explore the current potential of agriculture to provide employment and livelihood possibilities for immigrants in Sweden and within this context the paper addresses issues of digitalisation and current technological trends in farming and rural development. Empirically, the paper is based on semi-structured interviews conducted with local farmers, officials working on rural development and integration programmes at the Uppsala county administrative board level, officials working on rural development and environmental planning at one rural municipality of the Uppsala region, and members of rural advocacy networks working with both rural development and integration issues in Sweden. In addition, the paper includes the analysis of regional and national policy documents developing new regional and rural development plans. Furthermore, the paper analyses information published in one of the leading Swedish magazines of the Federation of Swedish Farmers which focuses on agricultural development and technology and the paper uses other secondary sources.
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| 3. |
- Alarcón Ferrari, Cristián, et al.
(författare)
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Agricultural Livelihoods, Rural Development Policy and Political Ecologies of Land and Water : exploring new agrarian questions
- 2023
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Ingår i: The Routledge Handbook on Livelihoods in the Global South. - London : Routledge. - 9780367856359 ; , s. 284-301
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This chapter examines some of the key links between agricultural livelihoods, rural development policy and agrarian change through the lens of a political ecology of land and water use. In doing so, we aim to develop a deeper understanding of the external and internal processes defining prospects and barriers for agricultural livelihoods. The chapter pays special attention to labour and gender relations in the understanding of agricultural livelihoods. The chapter focuses on 1) the role of control over land and water and labour in defining paths of agrarian change and their relation to different forms of agricultural livelihoods in the context of the sustainability crisis and climate change, and 2) how agricultural livelihoods interact with the wider processes of rural transformations premised on national rural development policies. In conceptual terms, the chapter develops perspectives from an agrarian question framework to offer theoretical and empirical insights into agricultural livelihoods in rural contexts of South America and Africa.
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| 4. |
- Alarcon Ferrari, Cristian
(författare)
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Cambio climático, Agenda 2030 y cuestiones agrarias después de la pandemia: Estados, legitimidad y regulación ambiental local en Chile, Suecia y Estados Unidos
- 2021
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Ingår i: Revista de derecho ambiental. - : Universidad de Chile. - 0718-0101 .- 0719-4633. ; 2, s. 109-142
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- El propósito de este artículo es contribuir al análisis conceptual y empírico de la regulación ambiental local en zonas rurales en el contexto de la crisis del covid-19 y la crisis climática. Para ello se presenta un análisis socio-jurídico de las relaciones entre la política del cambio climático y Agenda 2030 en el contexto de las actuales cuestiones agrarias en tres contextos rurales en la región del Ñuble en Chile, la región de Uppsala en Suecia y el condado de Delaware en el estado de Nueva York en Estados Unidos. El artículo se basa en trabajo empírico y una metodología cualitativa para la investigación en las señaladas áreas rurales. Conceptual y analíticamente se discuten las relaciones entre distintos tipos de Estado y los problemas de legitimidad y conflictos normativos en el contexto de la regulación ambiental. A partir de lo anterior, el artículo presenta un análisis socio-jurídico comparado de la política rural y los procesos de regulación ambiental en los tres contextos nacionales antes indicados para explicar cómo la política rural se transforma en un tema jurídico central en el contexto de la pospandemia y la crisis climática, donde preguntas sobre la regulación ambiental local y el desarrollo rural son radicalmente resignificadas. En este contexto, el análisis comparativo ofrecido en este trabajo nos muestra la centralidad de los conflictos normativos y los problemas de legitimidad en la regulación ambiental en el contexto de las nuevas cuestiones agrarias en territorios rurales donde se desarrolla una parte fundamental de la política del cambio climático y la acción climática. El artículo concluye resaltando la importancia de focalizar el análisis socio-jurídico de las experiencias de regulación ambiental local en las áreas rurales para entender el potencial y los límites de este tipo de experiencias en tanto alternativas de política ambiental local con mayor legitimidad en el contexto de procesos de democracia local y la participación de los gobiernos locales en la planificación y definición del uso y manejo de recursos locales.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Alarcon Ferrari, Cristian, et al.
(författare)
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Citizen Science as Democratic Innovation That Renews Environmental Monitoring and Assessment for the Sustainable Development Goals in Rural Areas
- 2021
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI. - 2071-1050. ; 13:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This commentary focuses on analyzing the potential of citizen science to address legitimacy issues in the knowledge base used to guide transformative governance in the context of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (henceforth SDGs). The commentary develops two interrelated arguments for better understanding the limits of what we term “traditional” Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (EMA) as well as the potential of citizen science (CS) for strengthening the legitimacy of EMA in the local implementation of SDGs. We start by arguing that there is an urgent need for a profound renewal of traditional EMA to better implement the SDGs. Then, we present CS as a democratic innovation that provides a path to EMA renewal that incorporates, develops, and extends the role of CS in data production and use by EMA. The commentary substantiates such arguments based on current approaches to CS and traditional EMA. From this starting point, we theorize the potential of CS as a democratic innovation that can repurpose EMA as a tool for the implementation of the SDGs. With a focus on the implementation of SDG15 (Life on Land) in local contexts, the commentary presents CS as a democratic innovation for legitimate transformative governance that can affect socio-ecological transitions. We see this approach as especially appropriate to analyze the implementation of SDGs in rural settings where a specific resource nexus can create conflict-laden contexts with much potential for a renewed EMA to support transformative governance towards Agenda 2030.
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| 7. |
- Alarcon Ferrari, Cristian
(författare)
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Contemporary Land Questions in Sweden, Far-Right Populist Strategies and Challenges for Inclusionary Rural Development
- 2020
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Ingår i: Sociologia Ruralis. - : Wiley. - 0038-0199 .- 1467-9523. ; 60, s. 833-856
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article analyses the rural politics and discursive strategies of the Sweden Democrats political party and contrasts them with the politics of movements proposing inclusionary rural development in Sweden. The article examines political and media documents on rural issues produced by the Sweden Democrats, uses documents of and interviews with representatives of rural development initiatives in Sweden and analyses relevant forest owners' magazines. The results show that the defence of property rights and exclusionary politics are a prominent part of the populist strategy of the Sweden Democrats in rural areas and that technological development and mechanisation of forestry and agriculture become crucial challenges in articulating political efforts for inclusionary rural development in Sweden. The article concludes by highlighting differences between the Sweden Democrats' populist strategies and the political efforts to build inclusionary rural politics in the context of contemporary land questions in Sweden.
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| 8. |
- Alarcón Ferrari, Cristián
(författare)
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Digitalisation, politics of sustainability and new agrarian questions: The case of dairy farming in rural spaces of Italy and Sweden
- 2023
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Ingår i: Sociologia Ruralis. - : Wiley. - 0038-0199 .- 1467-9523. ; 63, s. 703-728
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The article analyses how and why agricultural digitalisation unfolds in contrasting agricultural sub-sectors and rural spaces in Europe, with a particular focus on dairy farming. The authors explore the differences and similarities underpinning and produced by agricultural digitalisation and how this intersects with meanings of rural development and the politics of sustainability. Building on qualitative research carried out in the regions of Uppsala (Sweden) and Calabria (Italy), the article unveils the contradictory nature of agricultural digitalisation as a process intertwined with the capitalist development of agriculture that raises key political questions. The cases of Uppsala and Calabria, in particular, show that the transformation of dairy farming through automation and digitalisation is uneven and combined, being deeply connected to how politics of sustainability and rural development are embedded-and negotiated-in specific agrarian settings. The authors discuss their empirical findings in terms of new agrarian questions in Europe.
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| 9. |
- Alarcon Ferrari, Cristian, et al.
(författare)
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Forest research from a critical perspective - How can it contribute to new knowledge?
- 2012
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0282-7581 .- 1651-1891. ; 27, s. 108-119
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper develops insights from critical social theory with the aim of laying some foundations for critical forest research (CFR). The authors argue that such an approach could create needed knowledge about contemporary forest issues. In doing so, the paper first delves into the distinction between forest policy and politics of forests which is identified as a conceptually relevant issue within the context of CFR. Second, it uses the outcomes of the workshop Forest research from a critical perspective - How can it contribute to new knowledge? that was convened by the authors at the first Nordic Conference on Forest Policy Science held in Uppsala October 2010 to build on the conceptualisation of politics and policy within forest research. The combined findings of both a literature review on the issue of politics of forest and forest policy and the aforementioned workshop show that the conceptual difference between policy and politics is a key theoretical issue in relation to future prospects for CFR. In addition the results of the workshop clearly identified the epistemological, normative, social change dimensions and awareness of structural barriers as being at the core of attempts to develop theoretically grounded CFR. It is argued that a clarification of the concept "critique" is important within this context.
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| 10. |
- Alarcon Ferrari, Cristian
(författare)
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Forests at the limits : forestry, land use and climate change from political ecology and environmental communication perspectives : the case of Chile & Sweden
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is based on a comparative study of forest use and land use for forestry in Sweden and Chile. Processes of forestry development in the two countries are placed in relation to world forestry. Theoretically, the thesis draws insights and conceptualisations from historical materialism, critical theory and world systems theory to work with a framework combining political ecology and environmental communication. The thesis deals with forestry, forest use and land use in times where the importance of wood biomass is fundamental as climate change challenges are substantially defined by the use of forests and land. In this context, the changing meanings and materiality of forests, forestry and land use constitute a fundamental political process today at both national and global levels. One main focus in the research has been to explore current processes linking forestry and climate change politics and how they are materialized in two geographical areas; the study areas having been Ñuble province in Chile and Jämtland- Västernorrland in Sweden. The thesis analyses both contemporary and past events influencing the present situation of forestry in the two countries, uses incorporated comparison as a specific comparative approach and is methodologically informed by notions of dialectics. Analysis of discourses, observations, interviews and other methods have been put together along with theoretical reasoning on the constitution and transformation of historically specific social-ecological relations. The thesis empirically shows relations between social changes associated with forestry and theoretically draws from, and elaborates on, different forms of critical theory. An important finding of this thesis is the deep interconnection between forestry in Chile and forestry in Sweden. The study also shows that forestry development in Chile influences the overall situation of forestry in Sweden and vice versa. In this regard, forestry in the two countries has been shown to form and be formed through the historical development of world forestry. The thesis also shows how climate change has transformed discursive practices of forestry in the two countries. In addition, the thesis highlights labour questions, movement of resistance related to capitalist forestry development and specific discourses articulating forestry development in the two countries. A main conclusion of the thesis is that the conflictive nature of forestry in Chile and Sweden is greatly entangled with processes of environmental communication and political ecology relations; relations that are today formed to an important degree through use value and exchange value contradictions.
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