The project 'Sheep, wool, landscape and connectivity' focuses on the processes involved in the evolution of three regional economies and the commodification of their agro-biological heritage, specifically as this relates to sheep and related economic activities. The three regions are the Lake District, the Catalan Pyrenees and the Maritime Alps.
The project's aims are two. The first is to understand how the development of bio-economic structures depends on managing two potentially contradictory dynamics. These are the transformative dynamics of bio-technological innovation, particularly the separation of forms of life from the specificities of particular places and their history, and the investment in the development of bio-heritage to secure the renewal of local economies. The second objective is instead to advance a more general understanding of the relational and connective dynamics involved in the construction of bio-economic assemblages, by focusing explicitly upon the assumptions about life, time and space that are involved in bio-economic processes, examining how the component parts come to be connected, and reflecting upon what is required to think about these parts without presupposing connection.
By realising these objectives, the project advances understanding of an increasingly important aspect of contemporary life.