More and less: Mutable economies of Nitrogen

• Applicant: Dr. Veit Braun
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research ; Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Policy, Agricultural Sociology ; Sociological Theory
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 559042134

The project proposed here intends to investigate the social dimension of nitrogen. Reactive nitrogen, which is able to form compounds with other elements, is an indispensable prerequisite for plant and animal metabolism - and thus also for agriculture and global nutrition. Measured against the total amount of nitrogen on earth, the most common element in the atmosphere, the availability of reactive nitrogen is extremely limited. At the same time, reactive nitrogen also poses a significant ecological problem. In fields and stables, it reacts to form nitrogen oxides such as nitrous oxide, a major driver of global warming. Via surface waters and sewage systems, it is washed into drinking water, where it poses a threat to human health in the form of nitrite. Downstream it eventually accumulates in sinks such as lakes and oceans. Here its excessive availability leads to eutrophication, mass algae growth and thus to the destruction of aquatic, especially coastal ecosystems. The progressive increase in reactive nitrogen in bodies of water and ecologically terrestrial ecosystems is considered one of the most pressing environmental problems of our time: the ecologically tolerable amount of reactive nitrogen has been globally exceeded. For some time now, industrialized nations have therefore no longer made it their sole task to increase the availability of reactive nitrogen to safeguard food security. Today, they are also trying to reduce it in order to minimize damage to humans and the environment. Various actors and authorities are being called to account in this process: municipal waterworks, agricultural enterprises, public monitoring and environmental authorities. These actors are called upon to manage nitrogen sensibly to minimize its negative effects on humans and nature. Those involved in nitrogen management act based on different interests, incentives, knowledge and leverage, making the nitrogen issue a classic case for social scientific inquiry. Despite the social significance of nitrogen and the scope of the problems associated with it, there has been little research from sociology or other social sciences on its social circulation in Germany over the past 30 years. The project presented here intends to fill this gap. Based on an empirical study of contemporary nitrogen management and regulation, it aims to provide an overview of the current state of the debates and problems, to develop a sociological approach to nitrogen and its role in modern societies, and to make a contribution to environmental sociology in general.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants