Chemical pollution in social science scholarship is often described as invisible, inversed, normalized, imperceptible, unacknowledged, and unspectacular. This short communication explores conditions of visibility of chemical contamination. Drawing on Barry (2017) and Babri et al. (2022), these conditions are conceptualized as events of first and second order. This paper aims to explore events of toxic chemical pollution and how visibility is achieved during these events, taking the chemical contamination of PFAS (per- and polyfluoralkyl substances) in Germany as a case. The chemical group of around 10,000 per- and polyfluoralkyl substances, known as PFAS, is widely used in various applications. PFAS are persistent and can be found ubiquitously in the environment; however, there exist several hotspots. Drawing on first research results, the paper will outline initial analytics to explore the (in)visibility of toxic events and the chemical geographies involved. Toxic events exist in a continuum, ranging from anticipation and risk calculation to total surprise and ignorance. They are not predetermined to become toxic events; an occurrence might be significant on a local scale while remaining a "non-event" on a larger scale. Different trajectories have to intersect to transform a first-order event into a second-order event with broader reach and vibrancy. Still, the PFAS case demonstrates that toxic events are finite.
Escalating climate change in South Africa threatens ecosystems, livelihoods, and socio-economic stability through rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, and increasingly extreme weather. UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, which cover nearly 10% of the country's land area, offer a promising framework for climate adaptation by combining biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, and community engagement. This study investigates how South Africa's 10 biosphere reserves demonstrate organizational adaptive capacity across three dimensions: governance effectiveness, social capital, and access to financial, human, and technical resources. Using a mixed-methods approach, in-cluding a cross-sectional online survey of reserve experts and document analysis, the research assesses the integration of climate change into governance structures, the strength of stakeholder networks, and the extent of resource mobilization. Results reveal significant variation among reserves: Some, such as the Gouritz Cluster and Vhembe, have embedded climate considerations into management frameworks and secured funding through international partnerships, while others struggle with limited budgets, weak local engagement, and inconsistent application of UNESCO's zonation model. Social capital emerges as a critical enabler of adaptation, but challenges persist in communication and collaboration with local communities. The findings highlight the potential of biosphere reserves as "living laboratories" for climate adaptation while underscoring persistent gaps in resource distribution and governance. Strengthening formal policy support, diversifying funding, and deepening community engagement are recommended to enhance adaptive capacity. South Africa's biosphere reserves thus provide valuable lessons for integrating conservation and development in climate-vulnerable regions.
The Brazilian Amazon is a region deeply influenced by historical development dynamics and resource extraction. In it, rural producers (RPs) are often held responsible for the increasing deforestation of the biome. This article explores the intricate relationship between national and global discourses and narratives of RPs in Novo Progresso (NP), an emblematic municipality located along the BR-163 highway on the agricultural frontier in the Brazilian Amazon. The study seeks to answer the question: How do RPs' historical and present positioning and narratives shape land use and management on the agricultural frontier in NP? To comprehensively understand these dynamics, the research incorporates the RPs' narratives within the historical context of local, national, and international discourses that contribute to land-related decision-making, migration, displacement, and socio-environmental issues, including widespread deforestation. The article situates the RPs in three historical trends: the construction of BR-163, the onset of external pressure, and the current advance of the agricultural frontier. Through biographical interviews, the study connects the RPs' narratives with national and international developmental discourses in and for the region, providing insights into how RPs perceive the socio-environmental dynamics in NP. The results present various discourses that have impacted biographies and local land dynamics, further developing socio-environmental issues. In addition, the position of the RPs in the region and their biographies contribute to the discussion on determining how to deal with the region's socio-environmental issues.
Since the late 1990s, various Latin American countries have held constitutional processes as mechanisms for channeling social conflicts, in which food systems and rural territories stood out as relevant topics. In Chile, the neoliberal agrarian policy of largely uncontrolled agricultural intensification that used to receive broad-based international praise is facing increasing criticism due to its negative impact on the stability of ecosystems and society. This growing dissatisfaction led food systems and agrarian policy to become a focal point of debate in the Chilean constitutional process starting in 2020. In this context, our research seeks to analyze the actors and positions taken on food systems and rural territories in this process, as well as their underlying power structures, which resulted in the constitutional proposal's rejection in a plebiscite held in 2022. To this end, we review the Constitutional Convention debates and four political campaigns for the plebiscite. We assume that the reasons for the constitutional proposal's rejection are not to be primarily found in the constitutional commission debate on agri-food systems. Rather, they are a consequence of communication strategies mobilizing values and meaning among many inhabitants of rural territories by targeting their identity. By connecting the theory of agri-food geographies and critical rural studies, we consider that these strategies relate to the emergence of new right-wing populisms opposed to political proposals seeking solutions to the current socio-ecological crisis.
This paper shows how different actors and issues in the food system redefine not just who makes our food but also what food means to us at a societal level, extending earlier frameworks that define food as a commodity, a right, and a common good. The analysis starts by tracing foundational concepts to understand food and power in the making, including patterns of concentration, global food regimes, empire, and corporate power. It then reviews acts of resistance. Polanyi's double movement is introduced, alongside conventional and alternative food system models and social movements, to interpret resistance. The paper reveals significant power asymmetries and lock-ins and shows how neoliberalism can resist or respond to calls for change and find ways for food as commodity to reassert itself. The final part of the paper considers the land-food-climate nexus, including metabolic food politics, and calls for an additional more-than-human perspective to be developed to interpret these latest geographies of food and power. This new framing is essential because it is not only about who makes and remakes our food, or even our society, but more fundamentally the sustainable future of our planet.
This article addresses the understudied intersection of digital food cultures, consumer citizenship, and colonial trauma within the context of India. While existing scholarship has examined food cultures in India and their colonial legacies, the role of internet-mediated practices in reconfiguring these dynamics remains understudied. This article bridges this gap by conceptualizing digital food consumer citizenship and analyzing how digital spaces mediate aspirational eating of outside foods as both a continuation ofsocio-economic inequalities and a potential disruption of colonial trauma. To begin, the article examines the global history of Indian cuisine, exposing how colonial culinary politics shaped enduring inequalities and cultural hierarchies. Secondly, consumer citizenship debates open perspectives on participation in the era of economic liberalization and food cultures crossing class and urban-rural boundaries. Third, the analysis of digital food economies introduces the concept of smart food spaces to describe digital and sensor-driven transformations in food consumption settings, critiquing their role in hyperconsumption alongside their disruptive possibilities. The article moves on to explore aspirational eating in internet-mediated food cultures among India's heterogenous urban middle classes, particularly younger generations, as an expression of participatory global food citizenship that challenges post-colonial classifications. By foregrounding subaltern agency and diverse innovative practices, such as adaptive digital platforms of local community kitchens, the article explores the potential of digital food cultures to de-center global power structures, disrupt colonial legacies, and create counter spaces that thrive otherwise. Finally, it proposes empirical research directions to further understand digital food consumer citizenship and its implications for food justice.
Conventional extensive cattle raising has involved deforestation and biodiversity loss in tropical regions throughout the world. In Mexico, since the 1990s, cattle raising has largely undergone economic and political transformation from free-range grazing to feedlots owned by large transnational meat corporations, along with increased meat exportation. Transnational corporations exercise power over small-and medium-scale cattle raisers by setting prices and conditions upon purchasing theiryoung cattle to complete their development in feedlots, leading to vulnerabilities and inequalities based on the scale of production. Low prices paid to cattle raisers result in a lack of investment in innovations and sustainable practices, while middlemen and feedlots earn very high profits. The corporations further increase their meat power by shortening the fattening period of the cattle and exercising control over the entire cattle production process. This article analyzes how the current cattle-raising model, which favors large feedlots, has led to vulnerabilities for small-and medium-scale cattle raisers of southern Veracruz, Mexico, as well as the economic, social, political, and cultural obstacles to sustainable forms of cattle raising as a result of the imposition of this model. Silvopastoral systems have been implemented to raise livestock while also recovering rainforests and water security in the study region. However, the fact that these cattle are sold to feedlots for their final stage of development limits the implementation of sustainable cattle raising systems. As a result of extensive fieldwork in the Los Tuxtlas region involving interviews, focal groups, and workshops, scholars (including the author), cattle raisers, and NGOs have been jointly developing and implementing a sustainable cattle-raising project based on silvopastoral systems since 2019.
This study explores the politics of interspecies relationships in the inter-Korean borderlands. Pine trees (Pinus) are regarded as significant national symbols in both North and South Korea, making them a relevant topic in interKorean politics. As a result, diseases affecting pine trees have come to be viewed as an enemy of the state for the two Koreas. The spread of pine tree disease from the southern regions of South Korea to the northern parts of the Korean Peninsula has prompted both states to implement biosecurity measures. This research demonstrates how these biosecurity measures are enforced despite restrictions on human access to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas. To better understand this, I propose a framework of more-than-human territoriality, which analyzes how biosecurity measures shape and are shaped by interspecies interactions, highlighting the geopolitical implications of these dynamics. This dual process emphasizes how biosecurity measures mediate species mobility, reflecting geopolitical priorities while challenging conventional notions of sovereignty in the Korean DMZ. By framing interKorean politics within the context of interspecies dynamics, this paper challenges the conventional view of the DMZ as a "pure" and "untouched" natural area. This study reframes the DMZ as a politically contested and ecologically dynamic space where interspecies relationships actively influence territorial practices and state sovereignty.
This paper explores the legal and socio-ecological dynamics of lignite mining landscapes, focusing on the borders and extraction frontiers that shape these environments. It conceptualizes disturbance as a socio-ecological process that generates ecotonal dynamics, where nutrient-poor, sparsely vegetated surfaces of opencast mines mirror the ecological features of other habitats, fostering specialized ecosystems. Drawing from border studies, more-than-human geographies, and ethnographic methods, the article examines the paradoxes of lignite mining by analyzing the co-constitutive relationships between human and nonhuman actors. It delves into how environmental disturbance reshapes the mining landscape, emphasizing the fluidity and complexity of borders and frontiers. The analysis tran-scends the traditional binary of destruction and preservation, revealing how disturbance affects the legal, temporal, spatial, and social dynamics of boundary formation. By engaging with these dynamics, the paper sheds light on the interconnected processes that shape post-mining landscapes and contributes to a deeper understanding of legal and socio-ecological interactions.
Human attempts to draw clear boundaries between the wild and the civilized are typically subject to negotiations, discourses, and conflicts between environmental authorities, environmentalists, and the local population. However, this perspective often overlooks the agency of nonhumans in b/ordering space. Against this background, this paper offers a new conceptualization of more-than-human borderlands of wilderness. They are understood as spaces of continuous negotiation processes co-constituted by complex, relational, and hybrid entanglements of humans, animals, materialities, regulations, politics, discursive-material practices and transactions, in which the boundaries between the civilized and the wild are constituted, enacted, and challenged. Using the empirical study of returning wolves to Switzerland, this paper exemplifies the transactional constitution of more-than-human borderlands of wilderness. demonstrates that the returning animals challenge human b/orderings of wilderness by following their prey, hunting (domestic) animals or entering settlement areas, whereas humans attempt to restabilize the boundary between the wilderness and the civilized by putting the wilderness back in place through new regulations and b/ordering practices that allow, for instance, the hunting of"problem wolves." Thus, the boundaries between the wilderness and the cultivated are always being challenged by the transactions and intra-actions of humans, wolves, and other more than-human entities, thereby constituting the borderlands of wilderness that cut across human territorial and b/ordering claims. Therefore, investigating wolves' actions and the intra-active human attempts to restabilize their ideas of the "right place"for the wild allows a deeper understanding of wilderness in a co-created, fluid, and dynamic way.
In this paper, we explore sovereignty over territory and animal population health (intersecting borderlines) via spatial logics of disease control measures addressing African swine fever (ASF), a hemorrhagic fever caused by a virus (African swine fever virus; ASFV) that is deadly for wild boars and pigs. Biosecurity understandings rooted in epidemiology and situated at the farm and lab are challenged by the expansive geography ofASF. Wild boars' cross-border mobility, along with human factors, further contribute to the spread ofASF across the landscape. Under orders from veterinary authorities, enrolled actors on both sides of the territorial border between Germany and Poland seek to limit ASF's spread. Ethnographic research methods combined with an analysis of narratives in official statements/ media sources reveal the countries' incongruences in applying spatial confinement measures and enrolled actors' relational understandings of ASF risk that differ in placing blame over these borderlines. As a result of a perceived knowledge gap, fences are not erected on the Polish side, along with other measures deemed necessary by the German authorities to control the disease spread among wild boars. In attempting to resolve this gap in the biosecurity apparatus over controlling the intraspecies boundary, territorial borders are reinstated, and a spatial gap is enlarged between it and that of pigs and wild boars. However, the insurance ofsovereignty aimed at controlling one's territory and over animal health populations in doing so remains influenced by economic and social differences in relation to domestic pig economies and wild boar populations that create rifts in possible cross-border and cross-group cooperation.
This article analyzes how the "risky" mobilities of animals and viruses provoke government reactions that result in bordering processes: From 2020 onwards, German authorities erected hundreds of kilometers of fence along the Eastern border with Poland in response to the spreading of African swine fever (ASF), a highly contagious viral disease that affects both wild boars and domesticated pigs. The government's main intention behind fencing was to secure the German borderline against the unwanted border crossings of potentially infected wild boars from Poland. At this point in time, the animals were framed as a disease reservoir, while their wayward spatial movements were depicted as a biosecurity threat to the export-dependent German pig sector. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork in the state of Saxony, the article illustrates how government actors employed three techniques seeking to depoliticize the erection of veterinary fences, presenting them as an apolitical matter of concern, while withdrawing them from public scrutiny and contestation: first, re-scaling authority to the sub-national level; second, securitization; and third, disinformation. Yet, adopting a more-than-human approach to the study of borders, the article also points out how a number of human and nonhuman entities forged wayward relations that worked towards a repoliticization of the fences, while counteracting government intentions in the management and control of disease.
Due to urbanization, land-use intensification as well as land abandonment, traditional cultural landscapes are continuously declining worldwide. However, those landscapes often exhibit a high biodiversity and can provide numerous ecosystem and landscape services. Accordingly, traditional cultural landscapes with their low-input land-use systems might act as a blueprint for sustainable land use and landscape development. Against this background, a classification of traditional cultural landscapes is suggested as a basis for further research and for environmental or rural development policies. This is based on a holistic understanding of landscapes and cultural landscapes, respectively, and the perception of traditions. The criteria for the classification of traditional cultural landscapes encompass prevailing land-use types (e.g., pastures, agroforestry systems), particular land-use practices in order to overcome natural limitations for land use (e.g., terracing of slopes, irrigation), and/or cultural-historical drivers for long-term landscape development (e.g., impact of monasteries). The value of traditional cultural landscapes for nature conservation and sustainable rural development is given through ecological/environmental, social, and economic multifunctionality and multifaceted landscape services. Through their often embedded indigenous and local (ecological) knowledge, they can also contribute to current environmental and socio-economic challenges such as climate change adaptation. A global Red Books of Threatened Landscapes, already suggested in the 1990ies, could support national and international environmental and rural development policies. The restoration of traditional cultural landscapes will not only contribute positively to biodiversity on all levels and the re-establishment of lost or degraded ecosystem and landscape services but will also promote sustainable social-ecological systems.
Risk has become almost ubiquitous in today's global economy and has developed into an emerging topic of global production networks (GPN) research. Recent conceptual contributions emphasize that risks are socially constructed and can gradually convert into a performative risk narrative (PRN) in global production networks. To explore how PRNs can be empirically analyzed, this article aims to outline new methodological directions to risk-related GPN research. Against this background, we discuss two methods: discourse analysis and vignette studies. Hence, we argue for research designs open to qualitative and quantitative methods, to gather the diversity of risk expectations and related actor-specific strategic reactions. With this contribution, we seek to stimulate a critical debate on the methodological reorientation of risk-related GPN research.
Research on climate change and impacts of natural hazards, such as heat waves, on human health has increased in recent years. Various approaches are used to study people's attitudes and actions in this context, but little is known about the extent to which different modes or other environmental variables influence the results. Therefore, we ex- amined differences between surveys in three German cities, compared survey modes and investigated the influence of the temperature on the day of the survey and the previous days. We conducted two surveys on the topics of climate change risk perception and heat risk perception. In summer and autumn of2019, in total 1,417 people from the three medium-sized German cities of Potsdam, Remscheid and W & uuml;rzburg were surveyed via telephone or online. In summer of2020, 280 people were surveyed face-to-face in public parks in Potsdam. Climate change risk perception, the perception of heat waves as a health threat and the knowledge of heat warnings differed depending on place of residence, survey mode and temperature. Participants of the online survey showed higher scores of risk perception than participants of the telephone and face-to-face surveys, indicating a self-selection bias. Increased temperature was associated with slightly higher levels of respondents' heat wave risk perception and, among participants surveyed outside, climate change risk perception. The finding that both survey mode and environmental factors can influence survey results should be heeded when planning or interpreting and comparing studies.
The current global trend of increasing per capita living space in combination with more and smaller households will intensify resource and energy consumptions in the housing sector. Scientific scholars, thus, unanimously plead for a reduction of per capita living consumption. Since the demographic trend of aging will further contribute to a high increase of single households and cause further under-occupation of living space, the potential to spatially downsize is particularly high among those older age cohorts. However, the often-limited housing choices for seniors do not allow for a large-scale downsizing development. Beyond that, the discourse on housing downsizing lacks a discussion of distinct strategies of how to effectively offer options for older people to do so. Hence, the paper at hand presents the distinct instrument of home swapping which has lately been introduced by several German municipalities to more adequately allocate the existing housing space. Since a profound scientific debate of this approach is still pending, this contribution discusses home swapping as a suitable strategy to incentivize older households to downsize on their living space. In order to do so, the home swapping schemes of four German cities have been analyzed to add scientific evidence on the potentials and challenges of the instrument to downsize housing consumption.
Climate change and migration are increasingly becoming a part of policy discussions. One concept, migration as adaptation, has become popularized as a tangible way forward. While some studies focus on how this framing came to be at the international level, few have actually traced how it has traveled across administrative scales to the national and sub-national level. This paper looks to fill this gap and explores migration as adaptation policy in Thailand, a climate-vulnerable country with a highly mobile population. It finds that there is limited discussion of the issue for ideational and institutional reasons, including because migration is seen as negative or a "last resort" by Thai policymakers, limited leverage by relevant policy actors such as IOM within climate change adaptation policymaking arenas, and short-term and short-sighted policy reactions based on disruptive events. Given this, this paper questions the ability of migration as adaptation to travel to lower governance scales in particularly constrained contexts.
Over the past three decades, the Kenyan cut-flower industry has come under intense scrutiny for its environmental impacts and poor labor conditions, including low wages. A multitude of certification schemes have been introduced to address this criticism, each with its own regulations and standards. However, these certifications have had little impact on industry wages. Even though the most well-known standard, Fairtrade, explicitly targets living wages, wage levels remain well below living wage calculations for Kenya's flower-producing hubs. This article explores this discrepancy. First, I discuss local experiences with wage levels in the major flower-growing hub at Lake Naivasha. This discussion indicates that local evaluations of wage levels in the flower industry are more differentiated than global discussions on the living wage suggest. Secondly, I argue that certifications, including their measures to support living wages have a depoliticizing effect and side-line local mechanisms for setting wage levels. Consequently, living wages in the Kenyan flower industry are still a long way from materializing.
Fair Trade is a normative concept for creating more "just" trading relations between producers in the Global South and consumers in the Global North. It aims to foster the sustainable development of producers through instruments like minimum prices, long-term partnerships, and labor and environmental standards. However, as a market-based instrument, Fair Trade cannot fully escape capitalist logics like price competition. This is especially true of "Fairtrade"-certified products that compete with conventional products in supermarkets. Furthermore, as more large-scale enterprises like plantations are certified, questions emerge about how much workers actually benefit from certification. We understand Fairtrade's recent living wages policy as a response to this critique and examine how Fairtrade attempts to address the contradictions between its alternative, moral mission and conventional market logic through the instrument of living wages play out in the hired labor context. We draw on moral geography to frame our understanding of fairness as the outcome of a contested process in which different actors assume responsibility. We combine this process-oriented approach to fairness with an understanding of shared responsibility derived from differently situated actors' capacity to generate change. We illustrate the practical challenges of implementing universal concepts like fairness in the arena of wage setting at certified Indian tea plantations. The case reveals Fairtrade's limited capacity to make a difference, especially pertaining to workers' representation. The question of who is responsible for establishing fairness and on what level it should be done remains unsolved.
This paper presents coffee producers' subjective perceptions of voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) programs across southern Sumatra, a global center for Robusta coffee production. Household surveys and a series of farmer interviews revealed that producers generally had positive perceptions of these programs. Despite positive perceptions, the standards had little impact on yield or household incomes. This apparent paradox is explained by improved social networks and social capital, which were seen as important for broader livelihood security. Producers believed that VSS facilitated access to material support and increased knowledge exchange. This builds both bonding and bridging social capital, all with minimal disruption to the low-input system of coffee production that fits within farmers' broader livelihood strategies. Our approach highlights the challenges that impact assessments (including applications of the living income concept) face when seeking to establish ostensibly objective measures of well-being.
