Opportunity: Rise ATTER ‘Autumn School’ on ‘Ways of Knowing for Agroecological Transitions’

In News by Agroecology Now

Are you a researcher or practitioner focusing on Agroecological transitions? Do you work with social movements or want to in the future? Do you use participatory and activist approaches in your work? Do you want to work with others to transform the food system? 

As part of the RISE-ATTER project we are organising an ‘Autumn school’ on Ways of knowing for agroecological transitions in Dorset UK in October 2022. The main objective of this school is to create a space to bring together activist researchers and practitioners from across the world who want to exchange, learn and advance their thinking and practice on agroecological transitions. 

Please fill out this form by February 28th 2022 to express your interest and provide your input.

Students learn about transformative research approaches at Summer School in Catalonia organized by CAWR and UVic.

The programme for the school will be designed around the ATTER project, itself a community of practice of researchers and practitioners working on ‘agroecological transitions at territorial scale.’ It will draw on the expertise of the consortium – built from eighteen universities and civil society groups from six countries and sixteen territorial case studies – to offer an exciting and transdisciplinary programme. 

The school will build from the diversity of knowledges that exists globally in territorial food systems. We believe that all perspectives are needed to understand, facilitate and effect agroecological transitions. This is because transition processes will affect everybody, even if in uneven ways. Moreover, how we view ‘transitions’, ‘territories’ or even ‘agroecology’ will be different depending on who we are and where we are coming from. With this in mind the school will explore multiple methods and tools, relevant at a range of scales, that have potential to foster agroecological transitions that transcend the subordination of nature and of people along intersectional lines of race, class, sexuality and gender. 

Our approach also reflects how we conceive of the collective learning process itself. As such, the school will be based on the principles of critical and decolonizing pedagogies. Using dialogue, mutual exchange, feminist participatory methodologies, amongst other horizontal approaches, we will organise spaces for sharing ideas and research, unpacking problems in research, and to explore together the collective experiences, uncertainties, hopes and dreams of the group. Though we have already designed a lot of the school’s content, we are asking for input from those interested in participating, to share topics, approaches and ideas for the school. We have created space in the sign up form for you to send us your thoughts.

The exact details of of the school have yet to be finalised; however, at this stage, we can confirm the following: 

  • The school will be residential, hosted by an intentional community (Monkton Wyld Court) with basic accommodations and spaces for collective eating, and learning with opportunities to engage with local Agroecology and food sovereignty initiatives. 
  • We plan to hold the school between 3rd and 10th October 2022. Though unlikely, these dates are subject to change. 
  • An approximate price will be 400 EUR which includes the costs of coordinating the school, renting space, interpretation, all meals during the residential, ground transportation for local field trips, materials and overnight accommodations for all nights. This does not include the cost of your travel to and from the site of the school. 
  • There are some ways of reducing this cost entirely including 
    • We have a few fully-funded bursaries prioritised for researchers and practitioners. In making decisions about the award of the bursaries, we will give consideration to a variety of criteria, including, but not limited to access to funds, country of origin, gender, and ethnicity. 
    • If you are a researcher or practitioner from ATTER consortium you may be able to participate for free as part of a ‘secondment’.   
  • There is a cap of 24 participants.
  • The emphasis is on PhD students and early career practitioners (including NGOs, CSOs and local authorities), who will have priority; however, we welcome inquiries from other researchers, practitioners and activists.
  • The ATTER-consortium will run related schools in 2023 (France) and 2024 (Italy) – more details to follow on these.
  • We hope that participants in the school will stay connected in the “community of practice” via the ATTER project.

The autumn school team (Chris Maughan, Barbara van Dyck, Georges Félix, Nina Moeller, Jasber Singh, Lamberto Lamberti, Michel Pimbert, and the ATTER coordination team)

Co-organised by: 

Fill out this form by February 28th 2022 to express your interest.

For any questions about this process please contact chris.maughan@coventry.ac.uk and Barbara Van Dyck (ad5037@coventry.ac.uk)

Students learn about transformative research approaches at Summer School in Catalonia organized by CAWR and UVic.