The Border: Resisting Monocultures in Central Italy

Autori

Alexander Koensler
University of Perugia
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4786-0935
DOI: https://doi.org/10.61014/UtopiasSustainability/Koensler

Sinossi

Abstract

A new border divides the rural peripheries of central Italy, a border between those seeking to safeguard a varied agricultural landscape and those hoping for easy money. According to the ‘Italy Hazelnut Plan’, 20,000 hectares of new hazelnut plantations are planned in central Italy alone. However, the globalization of the agricultural model based on large monocultures represents a problem of global dimensions and is described by Donna Haraway and Anna L. Tsing as ‘plantationocene’: Monocultures of this size accelerate climate change, impoverish local economic fabrics and pollute soils and aquifers. This documentary portrays a group of people trying to resist the multiple effects of monocrops, building alternative economies and buying land to remove them from the sphere of influence of multinational companies.

Keywords: Plantationocene, Italy, Resistance, Rural spaces

Biografia autore

Alexander Koensler, University of Perugia

is an Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at University of Perugia, Italy, and a bush-league bee-keeper in his spare time. His work focuses on how grassroot activism extends the horizon of what seems possible and thinkable. He served in different faculty positions at Queen’s University Belfast, University of Münster (Germany) and the Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel). His publications in German, French and English cover four monographs and papers in major international journals, including for American Anthropologist, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Contemporary Ethnography, Mobilization, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research and Anthropology Today. 

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Volume

Utopias of Sustainability – The Sustainability of Utopias: A Multimodal Intervention

Pagine

123-128

Pubblicato

July 2, 2025

Collana

Political Imagination Laboratories
Copyright (c) 2025 Christine Hämmerling, Alexander Koensler, Marion Näser-Lather (Curatore del Libro); Madeleine Sallustio, Piotr Goldstein, Claudia Terragni, Nikolaus Heinzer, Cristhian Caje, Cornelia Eckert, Carmen Silvia de Moraes Rial, Carlos Fonseca da Silva, Sarah Ruth Sippel, Timothy D. Weldon, Cahal McLaughlin, Siobhán Wills, Konstantina Bousmpoura, Paula Serafini (Autore)

Licenza

Creative Commons License

Questo volume è pubblicato con la licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Condividi allo stesso modo 4.0 Internazionale.