• Dikovic Jovana

• Dikovic Jovana

Have you ever wondered what soil ethics are? Did you know that ethics play a crucial role in how we produce, distribute, and consume our food? Throughout the course, we will discuss different ethical perceptions and reveal the complex, intertwined, and often conflicting ethical worlds of farmers, consumers, legislators, and policy makers. We will contrast micro and macro ethical perceptions related to soil, production, and consumption, and analyse why there cannot be a unified view of the problems associated with food production and consumption. The course will provide students with coordinates for thinking about sustainable solutions to existing food and agricultural crises, which can only emerge from a dialogue with different ethical views on food, agriculture and consumption.

The curriculum draws on theoretical discussions in rural studies, anthropology of food and ethics, and environmental and economic anthropology, while zooming in practices and case studies from Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Required readings will help us to answer questions such as: What is the ethics of the soil? What are the ethics of production and producers? What are the ethical preferences of consumers? What are the ethical concerns of agricultural policy makers? How do they manifest in everyday life? These questions will open up discussions about the organization of life and systems of production and consumption in the countryside and beyond in contemporary Eastern Europe. Furthermore, the questions will help us to address the existing tensions that arise at the intersection of private and public life and interests, and individual and collective actions in the pursuit of the welfare of agriculture, farmers, and consumers.

The major learning goals of the course are:

• to introduce students to key theoretical debates and empirical case studies in the ethics of soil, farming, and consumption
• to provide an understanding of how the issues discussed are interrelated and important in shaping broader societies and cultures
• that students develop deeper insights into contemporary problems of food supply and distribution by analysing micro and macro ethical positions on agriculture, producer sovereignty, waste, food distribution, and consumption
• that through various exercises and simulations in the class students prepare for the challenges they will encounter in their future careers: finding socially inclusive solutions to a range of problems arising from diverse ethics and contested worldviews.

Course structure
The topics will be grouped in the following blocks: Ethics of soil and agrarian thought; Farmers’ values and sovereignties; Food distribution and food waste; Ethics of consumption.

Each class will be a dynamical blend of the three integral elements:

• 15-minute input by the lecturer aiming to help students to contextualize the assigned topic, after which will follow a student presentation
• interactive group exercises will facilitate understanding of the issues in question
• discussions of obligatory reading through which students will broaden understanding of the origins of variations of ethics of soil, farming, and consumption.

Examination Formats:
To pass the course, students must read the course material, regularly attend the classes, partake in the discussions and presentations, and write short reflections on the obligatory literature.

Course literature

Anderl, F.  2024. Epistemologies of Land. Lanham, Boulder, New York, London: Rowman & Littlefield.

Burton R., Forney J., Stock P. & Sutherland L.-A. 2021. The Good Farmer. Culture and identity in food and agriculture. Earthscan Food and Agriculture/Routledge.

Caldwell, M. L. 2009. Food and Everyday Life in the Postsocialist World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Diković, J. 2023. Prudent Resilience of Farmers. Journal of Rural and Community Development, 18 (3), 152-173.

Dorondel, S. and S. Serban. 2014. At the Margins of History: The agrarian question in Southeast Europe. MARTOR. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review.

Freidberg, S.  E. 2009. Fresh: A Perishable History. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Krasznai-Kovacs, E. 2019. Seeing subsidies like a farmer: emerging subsidy cultures in Hungary. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 48 (2), 387-410.

Rocha, C. E. Frison and N. Jacobs. 2021. The Hidden Costs of Industrial Food Systems. In Gemmill-Herren, B., L. E. Baker and P. A. Daniels (eds.) True Cost Accounting for Food Balancing the Scale. London and New York: Routledge. 68-82.

Schiller-Merkens, S. and P. Balsiger. 2019. The Contested Moralities of Markets. Emerald Publishing.

Thompson, B. P. 2017. The Spirit of the Soil. Agriculture and Environmental Ethics. Routledge.

Wesseler, J. 2022. The EU's farm-to-fork strategy: An assessment from the perspective of agricultural economics. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 1-18.