“Co-produced with nature.” Post-anthropocentric production networks in the vineyard

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Robert Pütz
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 578264425

The vineyard is paradigmatic for natural conditions characterized by domination and extractivism: monoculture, pesticide use, and heavy machinery have led to severe degradation of soil life in many places. Recently, however, the vineyard has also come to represent alternative production practices that seek to establish respectful, sustainable, and healthy relationships with the non-human environment. Wine growers who work in this way see plants, animals, and microorganisms primarily as partners in their agricultural activities. The proposed project conceptualizes this more-than-human collaborations as "co-production". By understanding production as a more-than-human practice, the project ties in with demands from various scientific fields to devote greater conceptual and empirical attention to the vitality of the non-human environment. On the one hand, this is to do justice to their role in processes that have hitherto been conceived in purely anthropocentric or economic terms; on the other hand, it is to arrive at new forms of coexistence in the face of climate change and species extinction. The project's starting thesis is that co-productive practices can be explored through four central dimensions, namely philosophy, control, care, and learning. The aim is to empirically ground co-production along these four dimensions and to develop it conceptually. The four sub-goals are accordingly: 1. How do winemakers conceive their relationship with non-human co-producers in production processes? 2. How do winemakers control co-productive practices, what leeway do they allow non-human co-producers, and how? 3. How do winemakers care for non-human co-producers? 4. How do wine growers learn from non-human co-producers, and how do new forms of knowledge influence their production? Transversally, and underpinning all four dimensions, a persistent field of tension emerges: 5. How is co-production positioned between economic interests and ethical attitudes regarding the treatment of the non-human environment? The project can contribute to the understanding of socio-ecological transformation practices. The case study is the so-called "natural wine" segment, which sees itself as a conscious alternative to conventional viticulture and a pioneer in alternative, non-extractivist, and thus sustainable cultivation systems. Empirically, the project is based on methodological situationism, which combines various qualitative methods. First, narrative interviews and multispecies work-along are conducted with wine-growers who want to live alternative lifestyles in relation to nature as part of 25 one-day visits to their operations, five of which will take place during the exploratory phase. Second, the project involves working for six months on a natural wine estate as a case study to identify "key situations of co-productive practices".

• DFG Programme: Research Grants