Funding Organisation: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
Timeline: 2021-2025
Budget: 811'818 CHF
Abstract:
Agriculture is paradoxically positioned in relation to climate change - contributing significantly to the problem, while being immediately and directly threatened by it. This project examines how the mitigation of agricultural greenhouse gases is emerging as a sphere of knowledge and an arena of management through the development of accounting practices and protocols. To date, mitigation has largely been a technical undertaking, dominated by scientific and economic disciplines that rely heavily on accounting methodologies. Social scientific research on the relation of agriculture and climate change has predominantly focused on advancing understandings of the impacts of climate change on agricultural livelihoods. Yet, agriculture is estimated to account for 25-40% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with projections rising over the coming decades (Smith P. et al. 2014; Sanderman,Hengl, and Fiske 2017). Given the sizeable emissions that are also generated by agricultural activities, there is surprisingly little literature within the social sciences that investigates efforts to mitigate greenhouse gases (GHG) in agrarian settings.
This project uses the theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches of anthropology to develop a more holistic understanding of climate change mitigation and address several important lacunae in current knowledge. It directs focus on the role of accounting practices in mitigation, which have received little attention within the anthropological literature on climate change. In doing so, it explores how accounting shapes and conditions the way that both climate change, and the work of mitigation, is apprehended within agriculture. The focus on agriculture is also deliberate. Agricultural activities have long remained on the margins of mitigation efforts and have proved controversial within climate negotiations. Preliminary research conducted for this project indicates, however, that agriculture’s potential in achieving future emissions reductions is increasingly recognized.
Our research suggests that climate mitigation is not simply a technical or economic undertaking but a social practice and environmental relation, and investigates what this means for emerging climate accountabilities within agrarian worlds.
Shaila Seshia Galvin is a sociocultural anthropologist and associate professor of anthropology and sociology at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID). Shaila holds a PhD from Yale University and her research examines intersecting processes of agrarian and environmental change. Her abiding interests in this intersection have led her to focus particularly on how emerging practices of sustainability— from organic agriculture to climate change mitigation—become bureaucratized and standardized, and with what implications for human-environment relations more broadly.
Diego Silva is postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for International and Environmental Studies in Geneva. He studies the socio-technical networks behind agricultural innovations, including property and safety regulatory frameworks around genetically modified seeds in Colombia, as well as seed technologies of climate resilience in Argentina. With ‘accounting for nature’ Diego is expanding his research to include environmental accounting practices as a technology of climate change mitigation.
John Paulraj is a PhD student at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the Graduate Institute, and research assistant at the Centre for International Environmental Studies. His interest in understanding the dynamics of change at the interface between society, environment and development has guided his work on issues of biodiversity conservation, climate change, disasters, agriculture, and water security in India. In the past, he has worked with NGOs, Multi and Bilateral organisations, and State and Central Government Ministries on varied development issues across different regions in India.
UN Related International Agricultural Mitigation Initiatives
This mind map shows some of the most important mitigation initiatives and their links to UN agencies, conferences and decisions, as well as to governmental sponsors.
Map design by Diego Silva.
Research carried out by Christina Lumsden & Diego Silva.
NGOs Related International Agricultural Mitigation Initiatives
This mind map shows some of the most important mitigation initiatives and their links to some of the most important non-governmental conservation organizations.
Map design by Diego Silva.
Research carried out by Christina Lumsden & Diego Silva.
Categories Related International Agricultural Mitigation Initiatives
Map design by Diego Silva.
Research carried out by Christina Lumsden & Diego Silva.
ESG and Carbon Accounting Frameworks Ecosystem
This logic chart summarizes the ESG and carbon accounting ecosystem. It takes into account global goals and principles, regional efforts and some of the most recognized ESG accounting frameworks.
Map design and research carried out by Diego Silva.
UNFCCC Structure
This logic chart describes the structure of the UN Framework Conference on Climate Change.
