Papers by Maura Benegiamo
Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, 2024
Ontological controversies represent a central issue for assessing the sustainability of technosci... more Ontological controversies represent a central issue for assessing the sustainability of technoscientific innovation and the policies that rely on them to address specific socio ecological criticalities. Moving from this hypothesis, this article inquiries the relevance of an ontological politics perspective to understand conflicts and controversies in innovation policies that affect the relationship between society and the environment, such as those related to the bioeconomy paradigm. The article analyses a case study of an opposition movement that arose in Burkina Faso in response to the experiments conducted by the Target Malaria project and focused on the use of an emerging genetic technology, namely engineered gene drives. It shows how the social tensions and conflicts generated around this technology can best be understood in terms of divergent positions on the ontological nature of society-environment relations and the ways in which alternative realities are created or rendered impracticable by technoscientific innovation and their application. This includes and broadens the question of the inclusion of different visions, interests and perceptions of risk in the politics of innovation and requires that both the epistemic and ontological character of innovation processes be addressed responsibly. Additionally, the article elucidates how, in the context of neoliberal bioeconomy, «philanthrocapitalist» programmes that assume certain views of reality and of the human welfare are in fact ontological politics with far reaching implications
Rivista di economia agraria, Dec 31, 2023
and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrest... more and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
Sociologia urbana e rurale, 2022
This paper identifies the features of Kenyan small-scale farmers and their production systems, hi... more This paper identifies the features of Kenyan small-scale farmers and their production systems, highlighting the challenges of sustainability transition. Drawing on the agro-ecology and eco-economy literature, the research hypothesis is that Kenyan farmers can play a role of paramount importance in stimulating place-based sustainability practices, and assure food security outcomes, because farming occurs following indigenous, place-based tradition and knowledge. 100 small farmers in the sub-county of Gilgil in Nakuru County, Kenya have been surveyed and profiled. The survey was sponsored by MIUR (Italian Ministry of University and Research). The research aimed to contribute to the debates on the sustainability of food systems.
SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO
In this introduction to the special issue of Sociologia del lavoro, devoted to labour transformat... more In this introduction to the special issue of Sociologia del lavoro, devoted to labour transformations and welfare policies in the context of the ecological crisis, the authors review the state of the debate, focusing on three emerging concepts: climate justice, just transition and sustainable welfare. They provide an analysis of the academic and non-academic contexts in which these concepts have emerged and the kinds of programmatic questions that they raise for the study of labour transformations, social movements and welfare policies. After discussing how the collected contributions operationalise the three concepts in different empirical and research contexts, the article outlines some critical gaps that warrant being addressed or explored further and propose a few methodological and analytical pointers that are useful for the continuation of the debate and, thus, the growth of a field of analysis that is destined to occupy a major space in the sociology of labour.
SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO
The ecological transition may represent both a catastrophe and a great opportunity for employment... more The ecological transition may represent both a catastrophe and a great opportunity for employment and work. Accordingly, the idea of a "triple dividend" is sometimes recalled: if properly carried out, the ecological transition could not only make it possible to deal with climate change and threats to biodiversity, but it will also lead to the creation of many useful jobs and make it possible to change the way work is organised. Although associations and unions have these issues in their sights, these remain for the moment insufficiently developed and equipped. In this article, I will first explore the diverse impact of ecological transition processes on employment (1), then move on to explore the actions of trade unions and associations in favour of a just transition (2) and finally discuss how ecological conversion can be an opportunity for new perspectives on changing work to emerge (3). I will particularly focus on the France case which, in turn, can be extended to othe...
SOCIOLOGIA URBANA E RURALE
The article draws on land and green grabbing debate to critically interrogates the failure of ?ei... more The article draws on land and green grabbing debate to critically interrogates the failure of ?eight ?Italian investment in agrofuel production in Senegal. It focuses on the characteristics of the ??Italian investors who ?were drawn to agro-energy ?production and of the incentives struc-tures that ??motivated them. Once ?on site, multiple management problems and conflicts with the ?local population ?arose. The ?article argues that this is not solely attributable to a lack of respon-sibility, bad ?governance ?and ethics of ?individual firms: the green economy and its speculative arrangements must be ?considered.
Sociologia del lavoro, Mar 1, 2022
The article examines the reactions of two important agricultural trade unions in France, the Conf... more The article examines the reactions of two important agricultural trade unions in France, the Confédération Paysanne and the Coordination Rurale, to the liberalisation and financialisation of the European Common Agricultural Policy. It highlights the adoption of a "producerist populism" approach focused on the role of transnational economic and financial elites in co-opting the state, reducing public aid and as the main driver of the economic crises experienced by French farmers. The article traces the manifestations of this approach in the claims and analyses of the two unions in the face of recent economic developments in the wheat and dairy sectors in France. It argues that the producerist understanding of the crises in agriculture leads these two farmers unions, from opposite political backgrounds, to develop common arguments, opening to strategic alliances. Finally, based on the current debate on authoritarian populism in rural areas, the article discusses the interest in overcoming these narratives in favour of a more emancipatory rural perspective.
Questões Ecológicas em Perspectiva Interdisciplinar. Vol. 2
Critique Internationale, 2020
SOCIOLOGIA URBANA E RURALE, 2022
This paper identifies the features of Kenyan small-scale farmers and their production systems, hi... more This paper identifies the features of Kenyan small-scale farmers and their production systems, highlighting the challenges of sustainability transition. Drawing on the agro-ecology and eco-economy literature, the research hypothesis is that Kenyan farmers can play a role of paramount importance in stimulating place-based sustainability practices, and assure food security outcomes, because farming occurs following indigenous, place-based tradition and knowledge. 100 small farmers in the sub-county of Gilgil in Nakuru County, Kenya have been surveyed and profiled. The survey was sponsored by MIUR (Italian Ministry of University and Research). The research aimed to contribute to the debates on the sustainability of food systems.
The chapter develops in three parts. It firstly provides a review of the evolution of dominant de... more The chapter develops in three parts. It firstly provides a review of the evolution of dominant developmental approaches to food and agriculture and discusses the main concepts, elaborated at both academic and militant levels, which inform the critical debate on agrarian development and its political ecology. It then focuses on the current phase of agrarian development policies and highlights some of the main contentious issues arising from it. It deals in particular with the reorganisation dynamics of global capitalism after the 2008 crises, the role of arable land, bio-regeneration processes and the economics of data in agriculture. Reflecting on political ecology, labour transformations and struggles engendered by these processes, the last section suggests the interest for future research in shifting the critical gaze from a production-based understanding of agro-capitalism to one more attentive to transformation in the field of socio-ecological reproduction.
Jeudi 8 mars, 9h-18h Journée d'études EHESS, 96 boulevard Raspail, Paris Salle M & D. Lombard Ven... more Jeudi 8 mars, 9h-18h Journée d'études EHESS, 96 boulevard Raspail, Paris Salle M & D. Lombard Vendredi 9 mars, 9h30-17h Atelier workshop EHESS, 54 boulevard Raspail, Paris Salle BS1_05 (1er sous-sol) Décoloniser le foncier. Enjeux et perspectives
È a partire da un confronto con le tesi esposte che l'articolo propone di andare oltre l'idea di ... more È a partire da un confronto con le tesi esposte che l'articolo propone di andare oltre l'idea di rendita, quale ambito entro cui pensare le relazioni tra capitale e natura e tra valore e cattura delle potenzialità neghentropiche. L'articolo riflette sul processo di astrazione della natura in forza lavoro ad opera del lavoro-informazione. Si mostrerà inoltre come ciò si leghi all'ipotesi di una diversa articolazione della distinzione tra entropia e neghentropia in relazione al lavoro, da intendere non tanto come caratteristiche proprie ai diversi ambiti della produzione, quanto l'esito di un processo politico e conflittuale interno alle nuove dinamiche di sussunzione. Non si tratterà dunque di formulare una critica alle argomentazioni offerte, quanto di condividere alcune riflessioni nel tentativo di pensare in maniera allargata le implicazioni insite nel nuovo ruolo assunto dalla natura nei percorsi di accumulazione. The commentary critically addresses Emanuele Leonardi's arguments as exposed in Lavoro Natura Valore-André Gorz tra marxismo e decrescita (Orthotes, 2017). In particular, it focuses on the distinction between entropy and negentropy with regard to labor and on its implication for theorizing subsumption and exploitation.
The recent debate on agricultural development revolves around two main models, whose relevance ex... more The recent debate on agricultural development revolves around two main models, whose relevance extends from the theoretical to the political level and which support the industrialization of production or smallscale agriculture as a key to food sovereignty and sustainability. This work contributes to this debate by building on a study conducted in Kenya on grassroots collective action in rural areas conducted by small farmers. After an overview of the relevant literature, the coordinates and main findings of the study are presented and their implications for the interpretation of today’s agricultural issue are discussed. Particularly, the three case histories provided confirm the interest of small farmers in an agroecological transition to strengthen their autonomy as producers and improve their ability to cope with environmental and economic risks. These experiences, it is argued, offer a viable alternative to technology-driven top-down development programmes focused on improving the competitiveness and integration of small farmers into global markets.
Uploads
Papers by Maura Benegiamo
Il rapporto è stato scritto da ricercatori, giornalisti e attivisti italiani e successivamente pubblicato dai seguenti gruppi italiani, senegalesi e internazionali che da anni lavorano assieme per dimostrare che il progetto Senhuile è dannoso e illegittimo: Re:Common, in collaborazione con il Collectif pour la Défense du Ndiaël, GRAIN, l’Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI), l’associazione SUNUGAL, e il collettivo WOTS?.
Il fascicolo dimostra che il controverso progetto di agribusiness dell’azienda senegalese Senhuile continua essere al centro di un conflitto e non accenna a placare la divisione sociale ed i danni ambientali che ha provocato. Il progetto, avviato cinque anni fa da investitori italiani e senegalesi, è stato sin dal suo inizio fortemente contestato da molte comunità di pastori e agricoltori che vivono sulle terre che il governo senegalese ha concesso all’azienda.
Far from learning from the tragic events in Fanaye, Senhuile has continued to implement the project, benefiting from the lack of protection of local communities’ customary land tenure rights, failing to carry out adequate consultations, ignoring its legal obligation under Senegalese law to conduct an in-depth Environmental and Social Impact Study (EIES) before starting any activity in Ndiael, violating the right to water, food and the environment, and disregarding the requirement for free, prior and informed consent. The investment is therefore a clear case of a land grab. ActionAid, along with a wide range of civil society organisations, has been supporting the claims of local communities in Ndiael throughout this process and is calling on the company to stop the project and conduct a proper consultation with communities.6 This call was supported by 105,000 citizens worldwide who sent urgent appeals to the Tampieri Financial Group, the majority shareholder in Senhuile. Tampieri met representatives of ActionAid Italy in June 2014 and claimed it would go on with its project and conduct proper consultations with all affected communities. In early September 2014, Senhuile contacted a representative of the Collective for the protection of Ndiael lands to propose a meeting, which is a welcome move, but up to now no such meeting has taken place and nothing has changed for the affected communities.
Senegalese authorities have failed to protect and respect the rights of local communities and – where Senegalese law is weak – Senhuile has failed to go above and beyond and meet its obligations under human rights law, in particular the requirement to avoid the negative human rights impacts of its operations and to ensure proper and transparent consultation with communities. This report provides an analysis of the company’s investment in Fanaye and Ndiael over the past four years, stressing serious shortcomings in the consultation process; the persistent lack of transparency about key issues such as the exact areas where land will be cultivated; the threats to the region’s fragile environment; the unbalanced impact that land grabs like this have on women; and the adverse impact on the lives and the food security of local people. It ends with recommendations for both the government and the company.
Eco-Marxist approaches point to a structural contradiction in capitalism’s relationship to nature, which may lead to a non-return crisis of reproduction, due to the ever-increasing costs capital has to bear to regenerate a non-fully renewable environment. This analysis seems all the more appropriate when considering the importance that the issue of ecological limits to growth has gained within social struggles, political demands, and capitalist recomposition strategies. Yet, such dynamics also reveal the attempt to take over environmental criticalities by transforming them into new market opportunities. Under this framework, capitalism seems to be moving toward the complete integration of nature by means of the primary valorization of reproductive capacities of inorganic and organic matter, including human and animal bodies.
Exploring the nature-value nexus allows us to address the mechanisms, implications and impacts of such a move. It also leads us to ask how rethinking the role of reproduction and of non-human and biologic productivity can provide a way not simply to update Marxist or anthropocentric thinking, but also to challenge the logics that sustains capitalist accumulation, opening to a posthuman understanding of production and to the appreciation of multi-species forms of co-dependence. Do we need a more than a human understanding of value?
Programme 2019-2020
Capitalism, Biocapitalism or ? with Dominique Meda, Maura Benegiamo, Luigi Pellizzoni, André Orlean, Antonella Corsani, Michael Löwy and Jean-Marie Harribey
| Tuesday, September 24th, 2019, from 5pm to 8pm
Financing the crises: climate, biodiversity and public action with Razming Keucheyan, Antonio Ducastel, Benoît Dauguet and Florence Jany-Catrice
| Wednesday, October 16th, 2019, from 6pm to 8pm
Bio-economy and bio-labour with Philippe Brunet, Benjamin Raimbault, Sébastien Lemerle and Maura Benegiamo
| Friday, November 22nd, 2019, from 6pm to 8pm
The crises seen from the rural spaces: the agrifood system and the value of biodiversity with William Loveluck, Phanette Barral and Maura Benegiamo
| Wednesday, December 18th, 2019, from 6pm to 8pm
Animal husbandry: bodies, labour and ecology with Marc-Olivier Déplaude, Jocelyne Porcher, François Thoreau and Riccardo Ciavolella
| Tuesday, January 14th, 2019, from 6pm to 8pm
https://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/CFP/SL-call45.pdf
Cosa vuol dire rendere la terra un bene comune? Dal land grabbing al consumo di suolo, la terra e le risorse in esse inscritte sono sempre più inserite nei percorsi di accumulazione e finanziarizzazione, con conseguenti effetti di mercificazione, privazione e dispossemento. Lo Stato e i governi locali sono attori chiave, ma spesso si trovano ad agevolare piuttosto che contrastare queste tendenze. I commons vengono invocati come una terza via per uscire da tale impasse, ma si tratta di una categoria empiricamente ed analiticamente ancora poco definita. La sessione raccoglie contributi teorici e studi di caso che interrogano la problematica dei beni comuni in merito a pratiche, politiche e conflitti legati alla gestione della terra e delle risorse
Il vise à souligner la richesse de l’objet foncier en tant que levier d’analyse de processus qui s’inscrivent dans des logiques englobantes.
Le foncier, un prisme pertinent pour revisiter d’autres objets :
Marginalisé voire totalement évacué des sciences sociales sous l’effet du paradigme culturaliste qui a prédominé dans la production académique depuis les années 1980, il nous semble que le foncier offre pourtant une porte d’entrée privilégiée vers d’autres objets d’études. En effet, qu’on entreprenne de mettre en lumière les logiques actuelles à l’œuvre dans les reconfigurations du pouvoir néo- et « postnéo- » libéral, ou qu’on s’emploie davantage à historiciser les modalités d’appropriation matérielle et symbolique des terres, la démarche méthodologique qui consiste à conférer une centralité aux questions foncières invite à reconsidérer des problématiques centrales et communes à divers terrains, telles que l’évolution des modèles économiques, la construction des Etats, ou bien encore des conflits liés aux usages des ressources.
L’enjeu nous apparaît donc essentiellement de parvenir à ré-ancrer l’analyse de phénomènes ayant court dans les sphères symbolique et émotionnelle dans une matérialité dont tient lieu le foncier en tant qu’ensemble privilégié des relations qui se nouent entre les individus et la terre. Cette matrice de la matérialité constitue à notre avis l’une des clés pour saisir une double logique : d’une part, éviter le « hors-sol » de dynamiques globales dans l’économie et le politique dans le contexte de la déterritorialisation des Etats depuis le tournant du néolibéralisme et postnéo-libéralisme ; d’autre part, éclairer les mécanismes par lesquels les terres, les populations, et l’environnement (socialement et symboliquement construits) sont à leur tour matériellement « incorporés » dans des rationalités englobantes.