Public conference as part of the search for a professor in Human Geography

Summary: From international organisations to city councils, innovation is frequently invoked as a key driver of agri-food system transformation. In this presentation, I examine innovation as both a concept and a set of socio-technical processes generating expectations, promises and imaginaries. Drawing on cases such as digital food traceability, agrivoltaics and paludiculture, I analyse how promissory discourses intersect with governance arrangements, policy priorities and practices. I argue that the emphasis on scaling innovation in these discourses overlooks context and represents the rural as a mere site of experimentation, optimisation or compensation, thereby reproducing urban–rural power relations within transformation politics. I conclude by showing how agroecological approaches to innovation, as observed in the case studies, may open alternative trajectories.