Innovating food, innovating Europe? Exploring technology, Europe-making and citizens as co-creators in the food initiative EIT Food.

• Applicant: Mascha Gugganig, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology ; Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2018 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 407011653

• Final Report Year: 2024

Final Report Abstract

In the last decade, it has become evident that innovation, novel technologies as weil as a wider public engagement have become increasingly important 'ingredients' in achieving a more sustainable food production. This is particularly evident in the EU, where the importance of (digital) technologies and innovation, as weil as the inclusion of different stakeholders in the food sector, has been recognized in the course of the European Green Deal. Yet how this is achieved, what forms of "sustainability" are emerging as a result, and how these processes mirror the political self-image has not been studied in detail. In the first part of the DFG-project , the role of innovation, technology and participation was examined in EU agricultural policy more generally, on the basis of various attended conferences, meetings as weil as conducted expert interviews in Brussels. In the course of the research project, which had to be adapted due to the pandemic, the second part was extended to ethnographic research on a lighthouse farm in Germany in order to gain a practical perspective on the role of innovation and technology in agriculture. The third part of the research project resulted from a Postdoctoral research position at the University of Ottawa, for which the DFG project was paused. The co-led research project "Diversity by Design: emergent agricultural technologies for small-scale farming" (with Prof. Dr. Kelly Bronson) allowed for a closer examination of the significance of digital technologies for agroecological farms. In the final part of the research project, we jointly conducted an online survey on the importance of digital technologies on farms in Germany, and a participatory workshop with small and medium-sized farmers, which demonstrated their future visions and speculative designs for digital tools in agriculture. While the research project deviated from the original focus on EIT Food, and the pandemic impacted several research endeavors, the resulting 'fragmentation' had many positive effects on my career.

Publications

• “What Social Science can add to the Study of Sustainable Agriculture.” PhD Symposium, World Agricultural Systems Center/Hans-Eisenmann Forum, Technische Universität München, 28. April (virtuell)
  Mascha Gugganig
  
• Saving Bavarian Hops in a “Parallel Universe”: Lessons on the Biopolitics of Agricultural Labor in Germany During the Corona Pandemic. Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment, 43(2), 85-95.
  Schneider, Marlise Horvath & Gugganig, Mascha
  
• “Caring for food is (not) caring for farming: negotiating urban gaze and (anti-) technology in regenerative agriculture in Germany.” Jahresversammlung der Society for the Social Studies of Science (4s), Toronto, 9. Oktober (virtuell).
  Mascha Gugganig
  
• “From Organic Farming to Agroecology to Digitization: uniting divergent approaches in EU policy imaginaries of sustainable agriculture.” Jahresversammlung der American Association of Geographers, Seattle 7. April (virtuell)
  Mascha Gugganig
  
• “From Organic Farming to Agroecology to Digitization: uniting divergent approaches in EU policy imaginaries of sustainable agriculture.” Understanding EU Legitimacy: cross-disciplinary approaches to the study of the European Union (Workshop). Viadrina University, 8. September (virtuell).
  Mascha Gugganig
  
• Digital Agriculture and the Promise of Immateriality. Food Studies: Matter, Meaning & Movement. Food Studies Press.
  Gugganig, Mascha & Bronson, Kelly
  
• Contested agri-food futures: Introduction to the Special Issue. Agriculture and Human Values, 40(3), 787-798.
  Gugganig, Mascha; Burch, Karly Ann; Guthman, Julie & Bronson, Kelly
  
• Cultivating intellectual community in academia: reflections from the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN). Agriculture and Human Values, 40(3), 951-959.
  Burch, Karly; Gugganig, Mascha; Guthman, Julie; Reisman, Emily; Comi, Matt; Brock, Samara; Kagliwal, Barkha; Freidberg, Susanne; Baur, Patrick; Heimstädt, Cornelius; Sippel, Sarah Ruth; Speakman, Kelsey; Marquis, Sarah; Argüelles, Lucía; Biltekoff, Charlotte; Broad, Garrett; Bronson, Kelly; Faxon, Hilary; Frohlich, Xaq ... & Martin, Sarah J.
  
• Eindrücke des Workshops „Biodiverse Landwirtscha, und Digitalisierung – zwischen Widersprüchen und Synergien
  Mascha Gugganig
  
• Social science – STEM collaborations in agriculture, food and beyond: an STSFAN manifesto. Agriculture and Human Values, 40(3), 939-949.
  Burch, Karly; Guthman, Julie; Gugganig, Mascha; Bronson, Kelly; Comi, Matt; Legun, Katharine; Biltekoff, Charlotte; Broad, Garrett; Brock, Samara; Freidberg, Susanne; Baur, Patrick & Mincyte, Diana
  
• “Brussels, Food Innovation Workshop, 2019.” In Wolf-Meyer, M & D. Ellioe (Hrsg.), Fieldnotes, Raw and Unedited: A Compendium. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (127-135). ISBN 978-1-5179-1614-5
  Gugganig, Mascha
  
• “Diversity politics in European agriculture policy: technoscience as glue in the coproduction of sustainable agriculture and the European Union.” Science Studies Colloquium, ETH Zürich, 4. Oktober.
  Mascha Gugganig
  
• “Mensch-Mulch-Bodenbeziehung durch Permakultur und regenerative Landwirtscha,.” Nantesbucher Bodentage, SH,ung Kunst und Natur Nantesbuch, Bad Heilbrunn, 20. Oktober.
  Mascha Gugganig