This open access book focuses on the meanings, agendas, as well as the local and global implications of bioeconomy and bioenergy policies in and across South America, Asia and Europe. It explores how a transition away from a fossil and towards a bio-based economic order alters, reinforces and challenges socio-ecological inequalities. The volume presents a historically informed and empirically rich discussion of bioeconomy developments with a particular focus on bio-based energy. A series of conceptual discussions and case studies with a multidisciplinary background in the social sciences illuminate how the deployment of biomass sources from the agricultural and forestry sectors affect societal changes concerning knowledge production, land and labour relations, political participation and international trade. How can a global perspective on socio-ecological inequalities contribute to a complex and critical understanding of bioeconomy? Who participates in the negotiation of specific bioeconomy policies and who does not? Who determines the agenda? To what extent does the bioeconomy affect existing socio-ecological inequalities in rural areas? What are the implications of the bioeconomy for existing relations of extraction and inequalities across regions? The volume is an invitation to reflect upon these questions and more, at a time when the need for an ecological and socially just transition away from a carbon intensive economy is becoming increasingly pressing.
1. Introduction. Contextualising the Bioeconomy in an Unequal World:
Biomass Sourcing and Global Socio-ecological Inequalities; Maria Backhouse,
Rosa Lehmann, Kristina Lorenzen, Janina Puder, Fabricio Rodrķguez, Anne
Tittor.- Part 1 Rethinking the Bioeconomy, Energy, and Value Production.- 2.
Global Inequalities and Extractive Knowledge Production in the
Bioeconomy;Maria Backhouse.- 3. Neoliberal Bioeconomies? Co-constructing
Markets and Natures; Kean Birch.- 4. Tools of Extraction or Means of
Speculation? Making Sense of Patents in the Bioeconomy; Veit Braun.- 5.
Bioenergy, Thermodynamics and Inequalities; Larry Lohmann.- Part 2 Bioeconomy
Policies and Agendas in Different Countries.- 6. Knowledge, Research, and
Germanys Bioeconomy: Inclusion and Exclusion in Bioenergy Funding
Policies; Rosa Lehmann.- 7. A Player Bigger than its Size. Finnish Bioeconomy
and Forest Policy in the Era of Global Climate Politics; TeroToivanen.- 8.
Sugar-Cane Bioelectricity in Brazil: Reinforcing the Meta-Discourses of
Bioeconomy and Energy Transition; Selena Herrera, John Wilkinson.- Part
3 Reconfigurations and Continuities of Social-ecological Inequalities in
Rural Areas.- 9. Buruh Siluman: The Making and Maintaining of Cheap and
Disciplined Labour on Oil Palm Plantations in Indonesia; Hariati Sinaga.- 10.
Superexploitation in Bio-based Industries. The Case of Oil Palm and Labour
Migration in Malaysia; Janina Puder.- 11. Sugarcane Industry Expansion and
Changing Rural Labour Regimes in Mato Grosso do Sul (20002016); Kristina
Lorenzen.- 12. Territorial Changes around Biodiesel. A Case Study of
North-western Argentina.- Virginia Toledo López.- Part 4 The Extractive Side
of the Global Biomass Sourcing.- 13. Contested Resources and South-South
Inequalities. What Sino-Brazilian Trade Means for the Low-Carbon
Bioeconomy; Fabricio Rodrķguez.- 14. Sustaining the European Bioeconomy. The
Material Base and Extractive Relations of a Bio-based EU-Economy; Malte
Lühmann.- 15. Towards an Extractivist Bioeconomy? The Risk of Deepening
Agrarian Extractivism when Promoting Bioeconomy in Argentina; Anne Tittor.
Maria Backhouse is Professor of Global Inequalities and Socio-ecological Change at the Institute of Sociology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. Rosa Lehmann is a political scientist and postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Sociology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. Kristina Lorenzen is a Latin Americanist and researcher at the Institute of Sociology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. Malte Lühmann is a political scientist and researcher at the Institute of Sociology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. Janina Puder is a sociologist and researcher at the Institute of Sociology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. Fabricio Rodrķguez is a political scientist and postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Sociology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. Anne Tittor is a sociologist and postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Sociology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany.
The editors are all members of the Junior Research Group Bioeconomy and Inequalities. Transnational Entanglements and Interdependencies in the Bioenergy Sector funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).