Mirko
Winkel

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Mirko Winkel is the coordinator of the mLAB. The artist and curator teaches at the University of Bern and other places with the aim of synthesizing art with scientific research and socio-political concerns.

Susan
Thieme

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Susan Thieme is professor of Critical Sustainability Studies at the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern. She brought the Global Science Film Festival to Bern and co-developed the Social Learning Video Method. She is co-founder of the mLAB.  MORE

Carolin
Schurr

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Carolin Schurr is professor of Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. As a feminist geographer, she has developed and experimented with affectual and visual methods to grasp the emotional effects of globalization processes on our intimate lives. She is co-founder of the mLAB.  MORE

Alexander
Vorbrugg

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Alexander Vorbrugg is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in Critical Sustainability Studies at the University of Bern. His research interests include visual forms of research and science communication. He is part of the coordination group of the mLAB. MORE

Laura
Perler

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Laura Perler is a postdoctoral researcher in Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. In her research she investigates inequalities in relation to reproductive technologies and the Swiss asylum system. In her projects she uses audiovisual approaches and collaborates with artists. Together with Mirko Winkel, she is currently organizing a traveling exhibition on egg donation. She is part of the coordination group of the mLAB. MORE

Stefan
Brönnimann

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Stefan Brönnimann is a professor in Climatology at the University of Bern. His research focuses on weather and climate reconstruction, climate models, climate dynamics, effects of volcanic eruptions on climate and climate and society interactions. MORE

Elisabeth
Militz

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Elisabeth Militz is an Assistant Professor for Social and Digital Geographies at the University of Innsbruck. As a feminist political and cultural geographer, her focus lies on global/intimate relations and digital transformations. She experiments with affectual and feminist digital methodologies for human geographies. MORE

Adrien
Mestrot

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Adrien Mestrot is a professor in Soil Science at the University of Bern. Part of his research topics is analyzing the biogeochemistry of soils under global change to improve environmental health and food production.  MORE

Nora
Komposch

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Nora Komposch is a PhD student and assistant in Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. Her research interests are geographies of the body, care and reproduction, migration and labor, and politics of the global intimate. MORE

Prisca Pfammatter

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Prisca Pfammatter (she/her) is a PhD student in Critical Sustainability Studies at the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern. Her research explores the experiences of queer farmworkers in Switzerland, using dance-based methodologies to examine the intersections of gender, sex, sexuality, and social sustainability in agriculture.

Johanna
Paschen

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Johanna Paschen is a PhD student in Critical Sustainability Studies at the University of Bern. Her research interests include social and environmental justice, transdisciplinarity and artistic research. In cooperation with the Academy of the Arts Bern, she is involved with the research project EcoArtLab. MORE

Luca
Tschiderer

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Luca Tschiderer is a PhD student in Critical Sustainability Studies at the University of Bern. His research focuses on alternative practices of work in health- and care related contexts. As part of his PhD project he uses social learning videos as a participatory method towards workers inquiry. MORE

Sarah
Hartmann

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Sarah Hartmann is a Postdoc student in Critical Sustainability Studies at the University of Bern. Her research looks at issues around work, transnational mobilities and future transformations in healthcare from a critical sustainability perspective. MORE

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Queering Gender, Work, and the Family Farm

2024
Gender
Agriculture
Prisca Pfammatter

Social Sustainability and Agriculture

Agri-culture – as a cultural practice – comes with rules on who produces when where and how. This articulates itself in the gendered division of work with men becoming the head of the farm, and women the person farming next to him. Although the gendered division of work and thus the subordinate position of women have been questioned, the idea of binary gender and the archetype of traditional family farm as unquestioned good has mostly been taken as a given. This, in turn, contributes to the (re)production of binary gender, heteronormative definitions of family, and the inequalities they often entail. 

This project shifts our attention away from the production of traditional gender-sex-sexual roles and centers queer experiences in farmwork. Based on explorative research that considered the mechanisms through which queer farmers are discouraged from farmwork on the basis of their sex gender and/or sexuality, this project explores how queer farmworkers contest gender-sex-sexual and farming identities, and what follows for more sustainable agriculture. In doing so it inverts previous perspectives by pointing out how gender roles are (re)produced not only on the farm, but also in and through research projects that prompt binary imaginations, exclude, and further marginalize queer performances and identities.

Next to ethnographic methodologies, the project builds on dance to explore queer farming practices and perspectives. Both gender and farmwork are deeply embodied practices—gender is expressed and understood through the body, while farmwork is rooted in physical movement and knowledge of the flesh. Working with and building on dance and movement practices the project seeks to take account of these embodied experiences.

For more information on the project listen to this episode of the Research Institute for Organic Agriculture podcast (in German): FiBL – Podcast: Queer, sichtbar und zukunftsweisend

Photocredits: Workshop by Livia Kern, photographed by Remo Schluep