Critical agroforestry: a conceptual and analytical approach for reclaiming agroforestry’s emancipatory origins

Abstract The systematic analysis of power remains a challenge in agroforestry scholarship. This gap persists despite considerable evidence that power–actor–centred, structural, and discursive–shapes not only who designs and implements agroforestry, but also the outcomes produced and how they are distributed. Here, I introduce critical agroforestry as a concept and approach to integrate power analysis into the study of diverse agroforestry technologies, practices and systems. Grounded in social science traditions, critical denotes an approach that explicitly interrogates underlying power structures, dominant ideologies, and structural inequalities. First, I delineate the theoretical foundations of critical agroforestry . The framework operatess on four central principles: agroforestry is politically defined, enacted through contested knowledges, governed by polycentric systems, and mobilized to (re)organize land, labour, value and risk. Next, I analyze how Agroforestry Systems has engaged with issues of power, equity and knowledge from its inception in 1982 to 2025. This involved reviewing 589 predominantly social sciences articles published in the journal. I demonstrate that while the analytical vocabulary used to discuss agroforestry has expanded over time, there has not been a commensurate focus on addressing the embedded power asymmetries that precipitated this expansion. I argue that future research can overcome this limitation by focusing on four intersecting areas: power and governance in polycentric agroforestry systems; knowledge hierarchies and epistemic justice in agroforestry research; labour, land, and livelihood rights across agroforestry value chains; and participatory methodologies and the co-production of agroforestry knowledge. More broadly, centering future agroforestry research and praxis on power will enable us to not merely ask whether agroforestry works, but for whom , on whose terms, and with what consequences for the structural inequalities that determine who controls, benefits from, or is harmed by agroforestry interventions. I invite researchers, practitioners, and grassroots organizations to join forces in advancing critical agroforestry as a unified political and technical endeavor.