Abstract
In recent decades, worldwide prospects have highlighted a huge increase in the human consumption of animal products. This has raised an international debate about the benefits of considering multi functional dimensions of livestock grazing systems to strengthen their sustainability. To tackle this question, several workshops organized under the umbrella of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock (GASL) have produced the first sketch of a multifunctionality framework. However, while some dimensions of the expected outputs of pastoral systems could be evaluated in a normative way (such as the production of goods or carbon emissions), others are highly subjective. For example, the contribution of grazing systems to biodiversity management, to the conservation of specific landscapes or to the construction of social identity is still vigorously discussed in many regions. The project will focus on the French PACA region.
Goal
GRAZY! is intended to explore the various understandings of multifunctionality and to turn them into methodological tools that could be shared between researchers from distinct disciplinary backgrounds and geographical contexts, between stakeholders of the livestock sector working in different parts of the world, and betweenstakeholders and researchers working in a same geographical area.
It keeps a view to validating a model that could be used in other research sites of the GASL network.
Action
Assuming that a valid model can’t be anything else than a “co-truth” (Bouleau, 2014), resulting from the confrontation of plural interpretations, we use video to enrich and feed modelling activities. Our method will consist in 3 steps: (1) Starting from video footage, we shall edit movies in order to generate debates among constituted focus groups of stakeholders on the various functionalities of livestock systems. (2) Then, we shall transcribe those debates in order to extract narratives. (3) Finally, we shall use these narratives to refine a conceptual framework previously elaborated.
Results
The concrete outcomes will be both the production of a relevant research tool for studying livestock farming at a global scale, and a reflexive approach on the methodology used to produce it. Besides an updated conceptual model allowing to assess the multifunctionality of grazing systems, two short movies will be produced: a thematic one, allowing to discuss the issues related to multifunctionality in different kinds of arenas, and a reflexive one, clarifying the whole research process through a film conceived as a methodological ’making-of’.
Perspectives
GRAZY! is designed as a transdisciplinary and participatory research project, in which researchers will engage with stakeholders in a joint research process. Whereas video is mainly used in agriculture for developing and disseminating techniques and technologies, films will be used in this project as a means to increase stakeholders’ reflexiveness.
Project Images
Project Number : 1605-059
Year : 2016
Type of funding : AAP
Project type : AAP OS
Research units in the network : GREEN
Start date :
01 Oct 2017
End date :
30 Sep 2018
Flagship project :
Non
Project leader :
Jacques Lasseur
Project leader's institution :
INRA-INRAE
Project leader's RU :
SELMET
Budget allocated :
20000 €
Total budget allocated ( including co-financing) :
20000 €
Funding :
Labex