This is an event arranged by the Collaborative Theme 3-2-1-Go! Group: 'Comparative Environments: Working across Land-Water Interfaces' and it is an open event for others.

Abstract

In light of the current climate- and biodiversity crises, the political interest in peatlands has increased dramatically as these ecosystems hold the potential to address several urgent societal challenges including restoring nature and reducing GHG emissions from agriculture. In Denmark, a political aim towards restoring 140.000 hectares of agricultural peatlands by 2030 is challenged by uncertainty, disagreements and negotiations among farmers, public authorities and soil scientists. A successful implementation and goal attainment necessitates new ways of understanding these controversies. By focusing on practices of measurement, assessment and valuation of peatlands among key stakeholders, this PhD project explores how peatlands are enacted as a matter of care in multiple ways. Based on ethnographic fieldwork within a local peatland restoration project in Denmark, the research sheds light on contradictory, overlapping and ambivalent ways of knowing and caring for peatlands among key stakeholders. This presentation centers on how “good” care for peatlands is being negotiated, what counts as care in the context of restoration, and how else care might be imagined and practiced.

Contact

Heather Anne Swanson, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University
ikshswanson@cas.au.dk