Exploring and Anticipating Livelihood Geographies in a Green Transition

• Christine Bonnin – University College Dublin
• Jack McCarthy – Teagasc – jack.mccarthy@teagasc.ie
• David Meredith – Teagasc

This session engages with the theme Environmental and Sustainability Economies/Geographies, through a focus on the implications of a green transition on future livelihoods. A green transition has significant implications for future livelihoods, particularly those associated with farming, forestry, primary production, extractive industries, and associated value chains (Mercier et al., 2020; Rossi et al., 2019).

It is well established that governance and policy-making are highly contested processes in which a range of actors seek to assert the relative importance of particular interests and knowledges (Marsden, 2013). In this session, we seek to bring researchers together who are engaged with questions of which and whose livelihoods come to matter in current governance, planning, and policy processes operating under the banner of a green transition. We are particularly interested in exploring how discourses surrounding such processes may envision or prioritise the continuity of certain livelihoods, and disruption or cessation of others. We are also interested in unpacking the power dynamics associated with such prioritisations and understanding how these are reflected in or supported by public, private, or hybrid mechanisms. Research considering societal, sectoral or territorial responses to current or proposed green transition strategies or initiatives are particularly welcome.

Submissions may examine issues relating to, but not limited to:

• The revaluing or marginalisation of spaces and places within narratives and discourses of future sustainable livelihoods;
• Implications for livelihoods of current or planned green transition initiatives and their potential impacts on social and spatial equity ;
• Processes and practices through which potential futures are brought to bear on the present through processes of visioning, modelling, anticipating, and pre-empting (Anderson, 2010).
• Practices and power dynamics of envisioning future livelihoods in governance processes;

References

• Anderson, B. (2010). Preemption, precaution, preparedness: Anticipatory action and future geographies. Progress in Human Geography, 34(6), 777–798.
• Marsden, T. (2013). From post-productionism to reflexive governance: Contested transitions in securing more sustainable food futures. Journal of Rural Studies, 29, 123–134.
• Mercier, S., Bresnihan, P., McIlroy, D., & Barry, J. (2020). Climate Action via Just Transitions Across the Island of Ireland: Labour, Land and the Low-Carbon Transition. In Ireland and the Climate Crisis (pp. 249–268). Springer.
• Rossi, A., Bui, S., & Marsden, T. (2019). Redefining power relations in agrifood systems. Journal of Rural Studies, 68, 147–158. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2019.01.002