Sustainability and the “urban peasant”: rethinking the cultural politics of food self-provisioning in the Czech Republic

From the introduction: The third article, written by environmentalists Petr Jehlička and Joe Smith, overturns accounts of food self-provisioning in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe that are rooted in myths of the “urban peasant”. After reviewing and rejecting those accounts the authors introduce very different explanations for high rates of growing and sharing food outside the market system based in social anthropological research in the region. The authors have extended that work with their own qualitative and quantitative research over a period of six years in the Czech Republic, and here present findings that confirm the contribution that food self-provisioning is making to both the social and ecological sustainability

What is the contribution of food self-provisioning towards environmental sustainability? A case study of active gardeners

Food self-provisioning, also labelled as household food production, is a traditional activity persisting in the countries of the Global North. Recently, it has become an object of sustainability oriented research due to the positive social, health and environmental outcomes. However, little is known about the rate of self-sufficiency of the food self-provisioners and about environmental context of this kind of food production, including its actual potential for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. To clarify these topics, we analysed sociological data from a quantitative research study carried out in the Czech Republic in 2015. The data from 775 food growing households were used. The combined rate of self-sufficiency of the households was calculated as the share of home grown fruit, vegetables and potatoes in the overall consumption of the household. The rate of self-sufficiency (33%) was then compared with average food consumption and multiplied by the different values of greenhouse gas emissions reduction potential of home grown food. This led to the reduction of 42–92 kg CO2eq/person/year, which constitutes 3–5% of overall food emissions of Czech households. The research shows that positive environmental effects are not negatively counterweighted either by excessive use of industrial fertilisers or by car transportation to the gardens. Environmental motivation is unimportant for gardeners. Our findings give support to “quiet sustainability” and “sustainable materialism”; two recently advanced concepts highlighting the importance of considering everyday practices in the quest for sustainability

Everyday resistance in the Czech landscape: the woodcraft culture from the Hapsburg Empire to the communist regime

Considerable scholarly attention has been given to Charter ’77 as a site of dissent in the former Czechoslovakia. Yet there was a socially embedded site of resistance that was active long before the dissidents. We call this site the Czech woodcraft culture. With its mass popularity and its potent references to Native American anti-colonialism, the woodcraft culture has still barely registered among researchers. In this paper, we offer the first scholarly account of the origins of Czech woodcraft culture, starting in the early twentieth century. We argue that subsequent transformations of the woodcraft culture in the Czech landscape should be understood as popular, complex, and often ambiguous practices of resistance, from the internationalist inversions of a national bourgeois order in the inter-war period, to nostalgic and paradoxically nationalist subterfuges of the Soviet-imposed regime after 1968. We trace how, as a response to the state socialist regime’s cultural and political pressures, the activities of Czech woodcraft culture were “layered with memories and experiences rooted in the pre-communist period” (Bren, 2002: 124). The Czech woodcraft culture as a whole provided its adherents with an autonomous space that enabled new forms of sociality, immersions in the natural world, and a host of long-standing voluntary associative activities that preceded the emergence of localized environmental movements and other sites of dissent around the Czech lands

Ondřej Císař: Politický aktivismus v České republice: Sociální hnutí a občanská společnost v období transformace a evropeizace.

Ondřej Císař: Politický aktivismus v České republice: Sociální hnutí a občanská společnost v období transformace a evropeizace. 1. vydání. Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury, 2008, 187 stran, ISBN 978-80-7325-168-0 (signatura knihovny ÚMV 55 655)

Czech Green politics after two decades: the May 2010 general election

The article examines the electoral results of the Czech Green Party in the 2010 elections to the lower house of the Czech Parliament, placing those results in both historical and sociological perspective. In particular, the article analyses the social bases of Green Party support in past parliamentary elections, and identifies reasons for the party’s substantial decline in electoral support in 2010

Post-socialist smallholders: silence, resistance and alternatives

ABSTRACT The majority of the world’s smallholders live in countries that experience(d) socialism, but they largely remain invisible in agrarian studies. This special issue puts the spotlight on postsocialist smallholders, asking whether, and how, they (1) fulfil important functions in society; (2) engage in resistance (against the state or corporate actors); and (3) constitute an alternative to the industrial agri-food system. We find that post-socialist smallholders rarely confront the mainstream agri-food system head-on, but that they make a larger contribution to sustainability, community and food sovereignty than do smallholders or alternative agriculture in the “West”. RÉSUMÉ La majorité des petits exploitants du monde vivent dans des pays socialistes ou qui en ont fait l’expérience. Ils restent cependant largement invisibles dans les études agraires. Ce numéro special met en lumière les petits exploitants post-socialistes et soulève les questions suivantes : (1) remplissent-ils des fonctions importantes dans la société, et si oui, comment? (2) Sont-ils engagés dans des dynamiques de résistance (envers l’État ou les entreprises)? (3) Constituent-ils une alternative au système agroalimentaire industriel? Nous constatons que les petits exploitants postsocialistes adoptent rarement une attitude de confrontation directe envers le système agroalimentaire dominant, mais qu’ils contribuent d’avantage à la durabilité, à la communauté et à la souveraineté alimentaire que les petits exploitants ou que l’agriculture alternative « Occidentale »

Raman Spectroscopic Analysis of Geological and Biogeological Specimens of Relevance to the ExoMars Mission

H.G.M.E., I.H., and R.I. acknowledge the support of the STFC Research Council in the UK ExoMars programme. J.J. and P.V. acknowledge the support of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (210/10/0467) and of the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic (MSM0021620855).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Raman spectroscopy of the Dukhan sabkha: identification of geological and biogeological molecules in an extreme environment

The characterization of minerals and biogeological deposits in a terrestrial Arabian sabkha has a direct relevance for the exploration of Mars since the discovery by the NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity of evaporate minerals on Mars that could have arisen from aquifers and subsurface water movement. The recognition of carbonates and sulphates in Gusev Crater has afforded an additional impetus to these studies, as relict or extant microbial extremophilic organisms could have colonized these geological matrices, as has been recorded on Earth. Here, we describe the Raman spectroscopic analysis of specimens of evaporitic materials sampled from the Dukhan sabkha, the largest inland sabkha in the Persian Gulf. With daily temperatures reaching in excess of 60°C and extreme salinity, we have identified the characteristic Raman signatures of keybiomolecular compounds in association with evaporitic minerals and geological carbonate and sulphate matrices, which indicate that extremophilic cyanobacterial colonies are existent there. This evidence, the first to be acquired spectroscopically from such a region, establishes a platform for further studies using remote, portable Raman instrumentation that will inform the potential of detection of similar systems on the Martian surface or subsurface in future space missions. A comparison is made between the results from this study and the previous analysis of a gypsum/halite sabkha where the extremophilic molecular signatures were better preserved. © 2010 The Royal Society

Quietly does it: questioning assumptions about class, sustainability and consumption

This paper questions assumptions about the relationship between class formation, sustainability and patterns of consumption. The empirical elements of the research are based upon qualitative and quantitative time-series research into food self-provisioning and 'quiet sustainability' in post socialist Central and Eastern Europe (Poland and the Czech Republic). It considers sustainable practices that are often considered to be taking place 'in the wrong place and the wrong time', i.e. they appear anomalous in terms of western expectations of patterns of development. We offer evidence of comparatively very high levels of food self-provisioning and sharing of the resulting produce amongst middle class Poles and Czechs. This evidence questions widely held assumptions about class, development and consumption. This evidence may be of significance for consideration of a much wider set of household practices/behaviours that are associated with the middle classes. Our explorations of the reasons for food self-provisioning throw new light on discussions of ethical consumption: ethics is lightly worn, even unacknowledged, amongst practitioners, but the commitments are widespread and robust. Our empirical findings, and the theoretical arguments we seek to test on the basis of them, are of particular significance in the context of rapid processes of rural and urban change in emerging economies