Dirt, plants, materials, and animals: processes of assembling and becoming.

Research output: Contribution to conferenceConference abstract for conferenceResearchpeer-review

In this presentation I focus on replacing the focus from humans to assemblages and the distribution of agency among present heterogenous elements. The case is from agriculture. I visited a farm. It is a new cooperative movement with the aim of buying up, rebuilding and leasing farms in order to cultivate the land regeneratively in a modern and sustainable way. The aim is to reduce the climate and biodiversity crisis and to produce more healthy food, while at the same time giving more space to nature. Regenerative agriculture is a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It focuses on topsoil regeneration, increasing biodiversity, improving the water cycle, enhancing ecosystem services, supporting biosequestration, increasing resilience to climate change, and strengthening the health and vitality of farm soil. I conclude, that situations are not just made up of separate elements but collected in assemblages. Assemblages are emerging combined productions comprising simultaneous and sequential organizations. Agency when working in the field is not just an individual trait. Agency is distributed between heterogenous elements. There is simultaneity of working with the field while conversing. The sequentially of interacting with the dog . The observability of the social world. There are consequences of all sorts of animate actions but also of inanimate structure in the environment that has effect on practices. This contributes to Suchmans work.
As Suchman (2007, p. 260) emphasized, we can study “the deeply mutual constitution of humans and artifacts, and the enacted nature of the boundaries between them, without at the same time losing distinguishing particularities within specific assemblages”. Agency must then be respecified from a “capacity intrinsic to singular actors to an effect of practices that are multiply distributed and contingently enacted” (Suchman, 2007, p. 267).

Original languageEnglish
Publication date2023
Publication statusIn preparation - 2023
Event8th. Copenhagen Multimodality Day - Copenhagen University, Copenhagen , Denmark
Duration: 6 Oct 20236 Oct 2023
https://circd.ku.dk/calender/8th-copenhagen-multimodality-day/

Conference

Conference8th. Copenhagen Multimodality Day
LocationCopenhagen University
CountryDenmark
CityCopenhagen
Period06/10/202306/10/2023
Internet address

ID: 368971702