5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

The ‘Anthropocene’ – framed through contemporary intersecting ecological-political-economic crises – calls for multidisciplinary transformative change. However, by making unsettling yet politically-charged ‘truth claims’ (e.g., climate impacts, environmental degradation, and resource scarcity), it uncritically depicts a universal ‘crisis’ to be conquered by a singular and human-centric view of ‘humanity’. Certain agri-food scholarship, for example, often lacks nuanced engagement and responds to the ontological multiplicity of ‘crisis/poly-crisis’ with ‘solutions’ that are uncritically ‘scaled-up’ (Tsing, 2015), which ironically reinforce Anthropocene’s grand narrative. Emerging efforts – especially around Value-based Territorial Food Networks (VTFN), have complexified this practice. By offering diverse examples (e.g., Alternative/Civic Food Networks, Short Food Supply Chains, and Local Food Systems), the VTFN has encouraged place-based and relational approaches to current crises.

Furthering Ejsing’s (2023) call, this panel seeks to de-centre the homogenous framing of ‘the Anthropocene’ by unveiling its internal tensions – similar to Tsing and colleague’s (2019) conceptualisation of ‘patchy’ Anthropocene with diverse and situated stories that are not neatly tied to a grand narrative. We welcome existing agri-food research practices that are similar to VTFN: weaved into the ‘webs of lives’ (Moore, 2015) and ‘tell more-than-human stories’ (Haraway, 2016). Specifically, it invites theoretical and pragmatic contributions on 1) unexpected findings that challenge and/or bring diversity to a singular ‘Anthropocene’, 2) methods and findings on transformative agri-food change that cannot be easily scaled up (e.g. context-specific responses), and 3) reflections on the challenges and opportunities when dealing with the unease brought by the multiplicity of ‘the Anthropocene’ and ‘crisis/poly-crises’.