A new initiative will host two ecological citizens’ ‘Re-assemblies’ to explore food and energy systems in relation to Net Zero transition.
‘Ecological Citizens’ Assembly: Rooted Deliberations with Everyday Ecosystems’ will explore how democratic innovations can be rooted both in place and in digital space. The initiative will stage two ‘Re-assembly’ events focused on food ecosystems – one at Regather Cooperative Farm, Sheffield, and the other within Regather’s digital twin, inside the popular farming computer game ‘Farming Simulator’.
In response to the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority Citizens’ Assembly on Climate (2023) and its food systems recommendations, the project will examine how regional food policy recommendations for Net Zero can be imagined in action in the context of local communities.
By bringing together a diverse group of ecological citizen-researchers, the project will experiment with how emerging digital deliberation tools and digitally simulated environments, alongside place-based citizen climate assemblies, can strengthen and reimagine ecological democratic governance.
The project is funded by an EPSRC / UKRI Ecological Citizen(s) Network+ grant, a four-year research network which aims to ‘catalyse, amplify and enable Ecological Citizenship in a sustainable digital society for positive climate action’.
Professor Renata Tyszczuk, Professor of Architecture and Climate at the School of Architecture and Landscape, said: “We are excited to have the support of Ecological Citizen[s] for our project which reimagines climate assemblies in collaboration with a range of citizens committed to exploring food and energy systems in relation to social and environmental justice. Our approach to combining digital and place-based assemblies – ‘on the farm’ – has the potential to innovate with deliberative democracy both through the lens of everyday ecosystems and in the use of sustainable digital tools that extend participation of ecological citizen researchers in assemblies.”
The project involves researchers from the University of Sheffield’s School of Architecture and Landscape: Renata Tyszczuk, Lena Dobrowolska, and Ashley Mason; and Jayne Carrick from the School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations, in collaboration with Regather Cooperative Farm, and community organisations Upper Don Energy Community Group, South Yorkshire Climate Alliance and Sheffield And District African Caribbean Community Association.