Which Bio_economy for what Kind of Future? Towards the Re-politicization of a Discourse from the Global North with Insights from Tanzania
Description
Several critics have warned that the proliferation of the bioeconomy discourse is further entrenching the coloniality of markets and knowledge engrained in formally postcolonial North-South relationships. In this paper, we only partly agree with this line of reasoning. As we claim, critics of the global power of the bioeconomy discourse understand bioeconomy in too narrow of terms. An unanimous core of the bioeconomy discourse, we argue, is the quest for visions and ways to organise institutions that enable human flourishing ("economy") in ways that comply with the requirements of inter- and intragenerational justice and that take all morally considerable beings into account ("bio"). To open up this "space of possibilities", we strategically reappropriate the notion of "bioeconomy", instead using the term "bio_economy", with the underscore signifying a broad variety of ethically justifiable visions of how the "bio" ought to be entangled with the "economy". As we demonstrate in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, the full range of national policy discourses on the future of agriculture contain potential for the development of critical visions of bioeconomy. We demonstrate the latter by turning to two articulations of agricultural discourse in Tanzania: land-use and genetically modified organisms. These cases provide evidence of the diversity of bio_economy visions already endorsed, albeit implicitly, by different interest groups in Tanzania.
Files
Additional details
- Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
- Accuracy
does not apply
- Completeness
The manuscript is provided in its completeness.
- Conformity
The manuscript has been deemed conform to Budrich Journals publications standards.
- Consistency
The arguments presented in the manuscript are self-consistent.
- Credibility
The manuscript has been vetted by Peer-review.
- Processability
does not apply
- Relevance
The accepted manuscript has high relevance in the field of environmental ethics, ethics of bioeconomy, agricultural visions, african futures, and socio-ecological transformations. The German version has been published in PERIPHERIE.
- Timeliness
The accepted manuscript deals with the idea that in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, the full range of national policy discourses on the future of agriculture contain potential for the development of critical visions of bioeconomy.
- Understandability
The accepted manuscript is presented in such a way that it should be understood by the wider academic community.