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Activity Funded

Radical Urban Cultures. Exploring the political ecologies of urban-food-soil entanglements in the Anthropocene through Natural Wine.

Culturas Urbanas Radicais. Explorando as ecologias políticas dos entrelaçamentos urbano-alimento-solo no Antropoceno através do Vinho Natural

Reference
2024.15482.PEX
Project Start Date
2026-02-16
Project End Date
2027-08-15
Principal Investigator
Scientific Area
Social sciences
Funding Program
Concurso para Projetos de Investigação de caráter Exploratório em Todos os Domínios Científicos 2024

Abstract

Radical Urban Cultures [RUC] investigates the political ecologies of urban-food-soil entanglements in the Anthropocene, against the backdrop of a global soil crisis, by examining the emerging phenomenon of Natural Wine [NW] . NW is an approach to winemaking marked by minimal intervention that challenges norms, practices and imaginaries associated with 'conventional' wine culture (Legeron2020). It gathers rural winemakers and urban consumers in a global community of distributors, venues and associations. RUC understands NW as a socioecological phenomenon emerging at the intersection of three cultures: a more-than-human ‘soil culture’ (Puig2015) made of the bacteria, fungi, archaea, insects, plants and humans composing its ‘terroir’ (Pavoni2020) a (counter)culture made of values, norms and practices alternative to the 'conventional' wine culture an urban ‘atmoculture’ made by the urban places where it is consumed (Brighenti&Pavoni2017) RUC understands NW as: inherently urban , since deeply dependent on  ???????urban political economies, aesthetics and supply chains; and intrinsically  radical , since informed by ecological imaginaries that deeply challenge the ‘grammar of purposes, means and values’ of industrial agri-food system (Pellizzoni2023:183; Gonzalez&Parga-Dans2023). RUC, therefore, studies NW as a radical urban culture  emerging from circulations and frictions between the more-than-human  ecologies  of production that compose it, the alternative imaginaries  that feed it, and its urban  atmospheres  of consumption. The current global soil crisis (FAO2021) results from the exploitative reduction of soil to an inert resource for human use and extraction, systematically concealing, polluting and depleting its ecological liveness. If, as soil activists show, forging liveable futures in the Anthropocene needs reimagining human-soil relations beyond existent paradigms (Puig2015), this is not only a rural  endeavour but also an urban  one. It is through urban-food relations – where industrial agri-food system, planetary urbanisation (Brenner&Schmid2014) and aesthetic capitalism converge – that most of socio-environmental damage is generated (Reisman&Fairbairn2020). Crafting alternative urban-food-soil futures is therefore essential. Guided by the hypothesis that NW is a  radical urban culture  potentially embodying one such alternative, RUC asks: ??What are the promises, contradictions and implications of NW for the normative, political and aesthetic task of reimagining urban-food-soil relations in the Anthropocene? RUC addresses this overarching question via a threefold lens, simultaneously examining the ecologies , imaginaries  and atmospheres of NW; and a multi-sited ethnography set in Portugal , a traditional wine country with a recently emerging NW movement. Assuming it as a privileged entry-point to explore alternative urban-food regimes within (and beyond) the scope of the European Green Deal’s Farm to Fork Strategy  (EU2020), RUC investigates the relations, narratives, norms and spaces that shape NW from terroir to glass . RUC combines theoretical/empirical insights from new materialism, urban political ecology and critical food studies, mobilising them through a multi-sited ethnography including qualitative mixed methods: literature review; thematic-historical analysis; in-depth interviews; focus groups and participant observation. RUC has 4 general goals : to theorise an urban-food-soil ontology that integrates alternative soil ontologies within planetary urbanisation to envisage alternative urban-food-soil futures in the Anthropocene to produce  the first comprehensive investigation of NW in Portugal to set the ground for a broader, comparative project at the international scale The goals are pursued through 3 objectives : to craft a conceptual framework for NW's more-than-human ecologies to explore the imaginaries of NW in Portugal and their contradictory unfolding in its urban atmospheres to produce knowledge useful to current debates on NW institutionalisation, organisation and regulation, fostering the collective production of a manifesto for Portuguese NW. RUC will have 4 types of impact Theoretical : offering fresh geographical approach to NW and urban food studies Normative : taking part in the discussion on alternative urban-food-soil futures Strategic : promoting a critical discussion on the political-normative infrastructure of NW in Portugal Institutional : consolidating the research team’s presence in international leading groups in urban and geographic studies, and setting the stage for a comparative project at a wider international scale RUC is based at DINAMIA’CET [ISCTE] , in collaboration with the Institute of Contemporary History [NOVA] , and the Spanish Institute of Natural Products and Agrobiology [IPNA]. It includes geographers, anthropologists, sociologists and historians. Led by a PI with significant track record, its advisory board is made up of leading international and national scholars and experts.

Institutions

Main Institutions

  • Associação ISCTE Conhecimento e Inovação - Centro de Valorização e Transferência de Tecnologias (Iscte CI-CVTT)
  • ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL)

Other Institutions

  • Universidade Nova de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas (UNL FCSH)
  • Instituto de Productos Naturales y Agrobiología (IPNA)

Funding 59.060,65 €

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - Portugal

59.060,65 €