“For Generations, Farmers Have Preserved the Environment, Now You Are Endangering It”: Affective-Discursive Practices in European Farmers’ Reaction to Climate Policy
- Dora Matejak
, - Melika Mahmutović
Abstract
The farming sector is one of the sectors most affected by climate change while simultaneously contributing to around 20% of global greenhouse emissions. To alleviate the pressures of agricultural production on nature and climate, the European Union (EU) established a new set of agri-environmental regulations positioning farmers as crucial actors in providing sustainable food and safeguarding the environment. However, farmers are increasingly contesting these regulations and mobilizing through EU-wide protests. Despite the obvious potency of the farmers’ actions, scholarly studies problematizing their manifestation in the context of climate governance are scarce. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing the 2023–2024 farmers’ protests in Slovenia to examine the interplay of affects and discourse in meaning-making among the farmers, which shows a mobilization driven by anger and fear as well as self-importance. The paper thus contributes to the knowledge on agrarian populism and farmers’ mobilizations in the European context, uncovering complexities and nuances of the articulated affective-discursive canon.
Keywords
farmers' protest, affects, affective-discursive practices, agri-environmental regulation
Author Biography
Dora Matejak
Dora Matejak is a junior researcher at the Center for Social Psychology and a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in International Relations and her research interests primarily revolve around the domains of environmental governance and justice, with a specific focus on issues related to the food system. In her doctoral dissertation, she is analysing the organic farming political framework on the levels of the European Union and Slovenia, as well as its impact on the daily lives of farmers. In addition, she is conducting research on the sustainable and healthy eating habits of children, young people and military staff.
Melika Mahmutović
Melika Mahmutović is a junior researcher at the International Relations Research Center and a teaching assistant at the Chair of International Relations, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana. In her research she focuses on left-wing emancipatory movements in the post-socialist Balkans and more broadly on municipalism, populism as well as production of knowledge in and about liberal international order. She is a managing editor at Journal of International Relations and Development and secretary general of the Slovenian Political Science Association.