Université catholique de Louvain – UCL
I am a sociologist, with background in agronomy. My main research interests are transitions of agri-food systems towards agroecology and territorial dynamics.
After studying bio-engineering, I worked for several years as an agronomist for NGOs, public authorities, farmers’ cooperatives and INRA (French national institute for agricultural research). I then decided to do a PhD on sustainability transitions to explore how actors can affect sociotechnical trajectories despite the interdependencies at stake in agri-food systems, and more specifically, how territorial dynamics can help overcoming lock-in effects. During my PhD, I studied the case of the Biovallée (Drôme, France) combining an ethnographic and an historical approach to analyse the sociotechnical dynamics from the 1970’s to the present day, taking all the actors of the local agri-food system into account. I showed that an agroecological transition is on-going, analysed how local actors created the conditions for this transition to occur and highlighted the mechanisms underlying this transition process.
I am currently a postdoctoral fellow in UCL’s Centre for Philosophy of Law, working on the Food4Sustainability project. My field work on initiatives aiming at introducing local products in supermarkets allows me to further focus on issues of governance and power reconfiguration.
Faculty/Department: UCL/Centre for Philosophy of Law/CRIDHO-BIOGOV
E-mail: sibylle.bui@uclouvain.be
