Transforming regional agrifood systems. Exploring values and reflecting normativity and solution-orientation

Abstract What is the role of sustainability science in transforming regional agrifood systems? How can ethical reflection contribute to transformative change, and how can we deal with normativity in this kind of research? This paper reflects on a research project that used creative methods to stimulate ethically informed debates about the future of agriculture.Based on the leverage points perspective, the transdisciplinary research project, Eco-Valuation, aimed to understand how communication about values can promote transformation processes in regional agrifood systems. Creative methods were used to stimulate debates about values. The project’s approach and key findings give rise to questions regarding the ethics of sustainability science. How can ethical reflection provide practical solutions to conflicts? By emphasising mutual recognition and discriminating between person and action, ethicists can facilitate a discourse about the desirability of different kinds of futures and ways to achieve them. How can the use of normative concepts in such a project be justified and handled? Interpreting local actors’ values in philosophical terms inevitably entails normativity. As facilitators of a process geared around practical cooperation, sustainability scientists should display honesty, modesty, and critical self-reflexivity.