Territorializing agroecology in Ireland: a case study of Talamh Beo
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Date
2025-10-03
Authors
O'Connell, Eoin E.
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University College Cork
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Abstract
The current operations of the agri-food sector in the Republic of Ireland, despite being hailed for its economic success and its contribution to world food security, are causing numerous, interconnected social, economic, and ecological issues. In contrast, agroecology, as a model of food production, is gaining greater recognition globally for its ability to tackle such challenges while also producing at comparable levels to industrial agriculture. In Ireland, however, “agroecology could be deemed as being nearly non-existent” (Agroecology Europe 2020, p.126). But in spite of its marginal standing there are those in Ireland already implementing agroecology and trying to advance it further.
The aim of this thesis is to examine the process of territorializing agroecology in Ireland. To do so, I conduct a qualitative case study of Talamh Beo—a farmer-led movement struggling for agroecology, food sovereignty, and food system transformation, and Ireland’s only member of La Vía Campesina—to learn from their specific experiences of trying to territorialize agroecology in Ireland.
Territorializing agroecology, however, is a complex process, and to navigate such complexity I argue—building on the notion of disputed territories already prominent in agroecology research—for an overlapping understanding of territory and territorialization; which when applied to the territorialization of agroecology emphasises that attempts to territorialize agroecology should not be considered as occurring completely outside of the dominant territorial formations of industrial-capitalist agriculture. Instead they overlap, come into conflict, and become entangled; which can create hybrid territorial formations that are the product of blended practices, relations, institutions, and values.
To mobilize this overlapping conception, and examine the relations, practices, and values that underpin T.Beo’s attempts to territorialize agroecology in Ireland, I employ three interconnected framings; moral economy/ecology; everyday resistance; and formal resistance. Through moral economy/ecology, I explore the values, norms, and expectations that T.Beo believe should structure the socioeconomic and socioecological relations of our food systems. While by way of everyday and formal resistance, I look at the actions T.Beo are taking—both as individual members and as a movement—to territorialize agroecology. Individually, I argue, members’ daily farming practices are forms of everyday resistance, and are a potentially powerful method, in and of themselves, for territorializing agroecology. While, formally, as a movement, T.Beo’s actions, I argue, are broadly aimed at creating space within an industrial-capitalist dominated agri-food landscape for agroecology to proliferate.
On top of this though, the experiences of T.Beo presented here through these three framings also highlight how difficult, complex and entangled the process of territorializing agroecology is. T.Beo recognise that their attempts to territorialize agroecology are emerging from within the very food systems that they are opposing and trying to provide alternatives to. Throughout the thesis we see how their vision and actions are restricted by, and have to navigate, deep-seated industrial-capitalist structures, practices, relations, and logics which dominate food systems in Ireland.
Overall, this thesis contributes to research on place-specific instances of agroecology territorialization, by shedding light on the prospects of, and difficulties faced by, current attempts at territorializing agroecology in Ireland. Furthermore, this study helps open up Irish agricultural research to agroecology and, more particularly, to the knowledge of those actually implementing agroecology. But in both respects this thesis is only a preliminary inquiry and a lot more work is required to deepen and expand on both of these efforts.
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Keywords
Agroecology , Ireland , Territorialization of agroecology , Territory , Alternative food movements , Talamh Beo
Citation
O'Connell, E. 2025. Territorializing agroecology in Ireland: a case study of Talamh Beo. MPhil Thesis, University College Cork.