Abstract submissions are now open for the 2019 European Society for Rural Sociology (ESRS) Conference to be held in Trondheim, Norway, June 25-28. We invite you to submit an abstract under Working Group 1: Digital Agriculture and Sustainable Rural and Food Futures.

Digital agriculture refers broadly to the application as well as integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for improving efficiency, productivity and sustainability in agricultural production. The purpose of this Working Group is to critically examine the relationship between digital agriculture and rural and food sustainability. We specifically invite papers that:

• Unpack the meaning of ‘sustainable’ rural and food futures in the context of digital agriculture;
• Explore how digital agriculture is assembled as an object and vehicle of sustainable rural and food governance;
• Examine the ways in which digital agriculture intersects, and is constituted through, other processes of rural governing such as financialization, standardization and neoliberalization;
• Historicize contemporary debates and update sociological analysis of digital agriculture in relation to analyses from the 1990s (e.g., Wolf and Wood; Wolf and Buttel);
• Investigate the possibilities for contestation, resistance, and alternative ways of organising/performing the relationship between digital agriculture and rural and food sustainability.
• Provide detailed case studies of how digital agriculture is implemented within specific regions and/or industries; and,
• Develop new or novel ways of conceptualising the relationships and tensions between digital agriculture and rural and food sustainability.

Abstracts can be uploaded at the following website. Please note that the deadline for abstract submission is January 10.

For further information, please contact the Working Group contact, Associate Professor Vaughan Higgins.