Speaker
Description
In the face of the ecological threats that are challenging today's inhabited territories, the agrarian question has nowadays been fully incorporated into the international urban debate and has become one of the privileged topics of discussion. This is certainly not the first time in history that urbanism has taken an interest in agriculture. However, the emergence of the agro-industrial system and the establishment of the relative food regime, which have become dominant in recent decades, have long contributed to keeping these two fields of knowledge - rural studies and urban ones - apart, confining them to different and, in some ways, opposed spatial spheres. Rather, as the work of several designers and scholars from different countries has recently shown, it is now evident that the knowledge of urban planning and agriculture are coming closer together to build new capacities for thinking about our common future. It is crucial to share this knowledge and to build new platforms for dialogue that will enable to chart the way for new international alliances and collaborations.
These initial reflections gave rise to the seminar ‘Agriculture and urbanism. Dialogues between Italy and France’, realised in the frame of the H2020 Cities2030 and the Vinci post-doc research projects, held at the Iuav University of Venice in March 2024. Focusing on the Italian and French scene, the event was built with the aim of bringing together two cultures of design and research in urbanism, calling upon different knowledges and positionalitis - thinkers, researchers, professionals, but also activists and institutions - to share knowledge and fruitful intentions for the future.
Based on the main results of the conference and the different contributions, the paper explores potential interpretations and proposes some possible guidelines for the construction of an emerging field of research and design that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. First of all, it shows why urbanism and agriculture are currently reuniting, both in the field of research and design and in the reality of different territorial municipalities. The paper then illustrates the emergence of new alliances between different actors - architects and urban planners on the one hand, producers and territorial collectives on the other, and between activists, urban planners and institutions - showing that the rapprochement between urbanism and agriculture contributes to the construction of unprecedented opportunities for exchange. The paper continues showing the rise of new tools that include agriculture, and more specifically agroecology, as a fundamental knowledge to accompany the transition of inhabited territories. Finally, some hypotheses are traced on a possible process of urban exodus that is underway and its future consequences for inhabited territories, a process that undermines the validity of most of the urban centralisation and densification policies currently in place.
The paper concludes by drawing some important lessons about the opportunities, but also the limitations, of bringing together fields of knowledge that have remained too far apart for too long. Returning to the European scale, it illustrates the need for a defined and specific operational and policy framework that cuts across the sectorial divide and advances the cause of an alliance that is still in its infancy, but which is crucial.
| Keywords | agriculture, urbanism, transdisciplinary approach, interdisciplinary dialogues |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
