Agriculture, knowledge and the ‘colonial matrix of power’: approaching sustainabilities from the Global South

Abstract

The proposed list of 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) sets out to reframe development according to a more holistic perspective. Yet, drawing on the example of the need for sustainable, resilient and biodiverse agriculture, it is argued here that the SDGs remain essentially grounded within one cultural understanding of how to address poverty. At least with regard to agriculture, the SDGs thus remain mono-cultural, one-dimensional, overly technocratic, and are far from universal as they fail to acknowledge the stipulated alternative pluriverse, frequently understood in the Global South. The problem outlined is neither a technical nor political one: being essentially related to knowledge production it calls for the pluralization of approaches to both global ethics and sustainability.