Global climate change and sustainability conversations include land and water use with its associated socio-political processes. Rural development cannot be taken for granted, and demands critical theoretical and empirical research around concepts of rural development and the materiality implied in such concepts. Within this context, research on rural development faces important theoretical and practical questions, which in many ways link our contemporary predicament to very basic and old questions in critical rural studies.
In this seminar, Associate Professor Cristián Alarcón-Ferrari will discuss how a comparative and critical political ecology approach to rural development can contribute to the analysis of the politics of land and water control in rural areas.
With examples from 15 years of research on agriculture and water access and management in Catskill (United States) and Tämnaren (Sweden), as well as current work in Chile, Sweden, Italy, and South Africa, the seminar will focus on power relations in the context of rural development policy and the social relations of production and reproduction associated with agroecological transitions.
Finally, the seminar will reflect on the theoretical and empirical challenges for research that uses comparative political ecology of rural development to reveal both the drivers of sustainability crises, and potential socio-ecological alternatives.
Bio
Cristián Alarcón-Ferrari (PhD, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences – SLU) is an Associate Professor in the Division of Rural Development at SLU. He is the PI in the FORMAS project FoodAct: Action Research for Sustainable Food Security in times of Crisis – Agroecology in Sweden, Italy and Chile and he is also Faculty Coordinator for Global Development at SLU Global.
His research interests concern land and water use, comparative political ecology and agrarian questions, and critical theories of capitalism. Previously, he was was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Development Sociology at Cornell University, and he was Professor of Law at the Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano in Chile where he taught constitutional law, labour law and environmental law.
In addition to his academic work, Alarcón-Ferrari has worked as a lawyer in Chile, where he has advised and represented trade unions and workers.
