Pioneers of the Future: How the Environmental Ethics of the Food Forest Volunteers Shaped the Interplay Between Anticipation and Hope.

As part of my Master’s in Cultural Anthropology: Sustainable Citizenship (2024-2025), I spent three transformative months conducting fieldwork in a food forest. This thesis, born from that experience, explores the metaphor of “pioneers”—individuals and plant species alike—as catalysts for ecological succession and societal change within these sustainable ecosystems.
          Drawing upon the fields of anthropology of the future and anthropology of sustainability, the research examines how these pioneers embody a link between environmental ethics and the imagination of a sustainable future. By studying the interactions between volunteers and their natural environment in food forests, the thesis illustrates how sustainability becomes an ontology—a way of being that reflects a respectful and harmonious engagement with nature. The study highlights the need for fresh ideas and approaches to reshape our connection with nature and redefine our place in the world for a truly sustainable future. In the context of a food forest in which the future has become vulnerable due to new construction plans, the concepts of hope and anticipation are explored as important factors in inspiring action and pragmatically enacting the future, with a focus on the balance between the two. The thesis concludes by suggesting further ethnographic engagement with the natural world, particularly plants, to deepen our understanding of sustainability and the future, uncovering deeper connections and similarities between human society and the environment.