Thesis on returning to peasants' traditional cultivation practices
On 14 June, Åsa Sonjasdotter, PhD at the Doctoral Studies programme in Artistic practices (Fine Art), will defend her thesis ‘Towards Peasant Cultivation of Abundance’. In connection with the defence, the exhibition ‘Cultivating Abundance’ will also be shown at Lund Konsthall. We contacted Åsa with five questions to find out more about her research process, thesis, and exhibition.
In her thesis, Åsa Sonjasdotter examines peasant’s traditional methods of breeding and cultivation. Using a range of artistic approaches, the investigation focuses on locations where industrial farming methods, such as the propagation of monocultures, have replaced traditional peasant practices. The aim of the research is to find ways to implement cultivating practices that can generate relations of abundance.
How would you describe your research and your thesis?
– The research presented in this thesis is based on a series of artistically based actions. Through them, I develop a method to repair what I describe as an onto-epistemological bifurcation, caused by the deprivation of peasants' lifeworlds, as exemplified by Karl Marx in the so-called original accumulation*.
*The original accumulation is the theory of how capitalism emerged when peasants land and resources were made into property and became possible to buy and sell. This prevented peasants from maintaining their traditional ways of life. Sonjasdotter argues that this division was reinforced by the exclusion of peasant knowledge systems and methods from Carl Linnaeus’ classification system in Fundamenta Botanica (1736), Systema Naturae (1735) and other works. This exclusion meant that the peasant’s way of living and understanding the world was divided into nature and culture.
– Rather than inventing new forms, my method is based on tracing and restoring existing, often overlooked techniques, materials, and stories. These actions of unlearning and relearning have required collaborative structures across established fields of practice and institutionalised areas of knowledge.
What made you choose this research topic?
– I have been working artistically on issues of cultivation for a long time. But I came to a point where I realized that I needed to be able to go deeper to understand the contexts better. The Doctoral programme has been a great framework and has created such opportunities.
What would you say is your conclusion?
– By bringing together material collected during the research I have created forms for the remobilisation of what I call peasants’ traditional practices of cultivating abundance. This implies a reversion to traditional practices, in places where most of the peasant’s life worlds have become property, and where human labour is based on income. This includes cash crop farming, for example, in which cultivation is used for profit, rather than for the household economy.
In connection with the defense of your thesis, you are exhibiting at Lunds Konsthall. How does the exhibition relate to your thesis?
– Archive material and other work processed during the research will be shown in the exhibition. It also includes the film Cultivating Abundance (2022), which is a central part of my research.
What will be your next step, are you going to continue your research?
– Yes, I will be researching issues of cultivation and agriculture with a focus on trans local contexts.
More information about the public defence and the exhibition