Rural women face existential challenges of social and ecological justice that require holistic and transformative innovations (Anderson et al., 2019). In Brazil, where the proposed research is located, agroecological feminist movements have used transdisciplinary practices to create an innovative political-pedagogical tool called the Agroecological Logbooks. These logbooks are part of an methodology and strategy for rural development that stressed the importance of gender as a transversal issue for healthy, just, and agroecological food systems. As a grassroots innovation based on diverse epistemic knowledges the agroecological logbooks have shown the importance of rural women and their productive and reproductive work in creating resilience of rural life. It has also motivated rural women to mutually reflect and become aware of their reality to collectively learn to transgress the daily oppressions they experience.

As the success of the Agroecological Logbooks becomes more evident, the logbooks are increasingly at the risk of being captured by hegemonic actors that make such innovations less transformative and radical than they are intended to be (Ludwig & Boogaard, 2021; Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, 2022; Delgado & Rist, 2016). While working with the Agroecological Logbooks innovation, international institutions -highly interested in its ‘success’ and its ‘numbers’, often lack reflexivity and understanding of the conditions needed for applying and scaling this methodology. As a result, the capture of this innovations risks erasing its emancipatory and transgressive potential. This project aims to better understand the Agroecological Logbooks as an instigator of transgressive learning, and as a grassroots innovation at the risk of capture.

PhD Esther Milberg Muñiz