SOY STORIES: Connected (sustainability) histories and futures of the global Soyacene

Abstract

The research project SOY STORIES investigates diverse Brazilian and Dutch histories connected by soy, and studies how a connected diversity perspective can contribute to imagining more inclusive sustainable futures. Since the 1970s, accelerating soy production in Brazil has been associated with regional challenges such as large-scale deforestation, land-grabbing and a pesticide crisis. Meanwhile soy-based intensive animal farming in the Netherlands came with challenges such as a 4-decades-long national manure and nitrogen crisis, public health hazards, greenhouse gas emissions and animal welfare problems. Studying these connected histories of diverse challenges-challenges which could be characterized as sustainability challenges-we aim to develop an alternative approach to sustainability histories that either produce fragmented microhistories or reductionist (often Western-centric) global master narratives. Moreover, by working with a broad variety of social partners, we aim to simultaneously develop more plural and inclusive histories, and investigate if and how developing these plural-and-connected histories may inspire different (i.e. respecting plural ways of being on both sides of the Atlantic) modes of engagement with sustainability challenges today-which, too, tend to alternate between parochialism and universalism. This research proposal (1) introduces the research aims, (2) develops a tentative conceptualization and (3) research design, (4) discusses research methods, (5) articulates envisioned contributions to the fields of sustainability history and to transdisciplinary sustainability research and (6) discusses societal relevance.

Full text

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SOY STORIES:
Connected (sustainability) histories and futures of the global Soyacene
Erik van der Vleuten (Eindhoven University of Technology)
Evelien de Hoop, Jacqueline Broerse (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Claiton M. da Silva (Universidade Federal da Frontera Sul)
Note to the reader
This text stems from a research proposal awarded by the Dutch research council NWO in its Open
Competition round 2021-22. We hereby share it with the academic community with minor changes.
Please note that since then, numerous project adaptations have been made, and will continue to
be made. Notably, we emphasize the need to further decenter the term sustainability (in particular
when used as an analytical concept without reflecting on the ideologies with which it has been
imbued over the past decades; Gómes-Baggethun 2019), and to rethink the notion of hi/stories.
*
Abstract
Different regions across the globe face grave challenges that may be at once highly diverse and
highly interconnected. The research project SOY STORIES investigates diverse Brazilian and Dutch
histories connected by soy, and studies how a connected diversity perspective can contribute to
imagining more inclusive sustainable futures. Since the 1970s, accelerating soy production in Brazil
has been associated with regional challenges such as large-scale deforestation, land-grabbing and
a pesticide crisis. Meanwhile soy-based intensive animal farming in the Netherlands came with
challenges such as a 4-decades-long national manure and nitrogen crisis, public health hazards,
greenhouse gas emissions and animal welfare problems. Studying these connected histories of
diverse challenges – challenges which could be characterized as sustainability challenges – we aim
to develop an alternative approach to sustainability histories that either produce fragmented
microhistories or reductionist (often Western-centric) global master narratives. Moreover, by
working with a broad variety of social partners, we aim to simultaneously develop more plural and
inclusive histories, and investigate if and how developing these plural-and-connected histories may
inspire different (i.e. respecting plural ways of being on both sides of the Atlantic) modes of
engagement with sustainability challenges today—which, too, tend to alternate between
parochialism and universalism. This research proposal (1) introduces the research aims, (2)
develops a tentative conceptualization and (3) research design, (4) discusses research methods, (5)
articulates envisioned contributions to the fields of sustainability history and to transdisciplinary
sustainability research and (6) discusses societal relevance.
*
Also, we apologize for occasional proposal-speak, such as bold claims to excellence, innovativeness and impact
that do not befit the modesty with which we wish to work. Furthermore, in preparing this proposal, we
acknowledge feedback and support from a number of persons. They include Jonas van der Straeten, Henny
Romijn, Carmen Rodarius (all TUE), Geert Somsen, Anne Loeber, Marjoleine van der Meij, Barbara Regeer, Walter
van Raaij, Karin Rade (all VU), and Samira Peruchi Moretto (UFFS). Herman de Boon and Heleen de Coninck helped
us contact societal partners who gave important feedback, who we for reasons of anonymity do not list here at
this point.
van der Vleuten, E., de Hoop, E., Broerse, J.E.W., da Silva, C.M. (2022). SOY STORIES: Connected (sustainability)
histories and futures of the global Soyacene. NWO Research proposal 406.21.FHR.023' (Eindhoven/ Amsterdam/ Chapecó)

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1. INTRODUCTION
Different regions across the globe face grave sustainability challenges that may be at once highly
diverse and highly interconnected. We currently fail to understand the connected histories of this
plurality of challenges: regional sustainability histories are predominantly studied in isolation from one
another or as instances of generic ‘global’ sustainability challenges (Caradonna 2018). This is not only
historiographically problematic, but also societally, because the neglect of connected sustainability
histories may entrench a similar neglect in future imaginaries, by-and-large ignoring how addressing
one region’s sustainability challenges affects sustainability challenges elsewhere.
SOY STORIES therefore investigates the plural-and-connected sustainability histories of a particularly
prominent case: the sustainability challenges related to the production of soybeans in Brazil and the
use of soybeans in the Netherlands (figure 1). Moreover, and crucially, we combine historical research
with transdisciplinary sustainability research (TDR) to study and evaluate how this novel historical
knowledge can inform the development of more inclusive sustainable future imaginaries—inclusive of
sustainability challenges on both sides of the Atlantic. In doing so, we contribute to soy historiography
and to the vibrant fields of sustainability history and transdisciplinary research for sustainable futures.
SOY STORIES thus has two interrelated research objectives, namely:
(1) enriching sustainability history with a plural-and-connected approach to study interrelated
sustainability challenges—for the case of Brazilian and Dutch sustainability challenges connected
by soy;
(2) rendering such plural-and-connected soy sustainability research actionable, in a reflexive manner,
for the development of inclusive sustainable future imaginaries in both regions.
To realize these objectives, SOY STORIES combines expertise in sustainability history and transnational
history on both sides of the Atlantic (History Lab TUE, NL and UFFS, Brazil) with, unique for historical
research, expertise in TDR (Athena Institute, VU, NL). Hence, it seeks to develop new approaches for
both historiography and TDR.
Figure 1. SOY STORIES investigates Brazilian and Dutch regions’ plural soy-connected sustainability
histories and future imaginaries. Historians speak of a veritable ‘Soyacene’ (Da Silva & de Majo 2021a).

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2. CONCEPTUALIZATION AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
We develop our analytical approach based on an innovative combination of selected work from the
following literatures: sustainability history, global (environmental) history, sustainability knowledge
politics, and TDR.
1. A plural-and-connected approach
Our plural-and-connected approach (objective 1) builds on three key notions: plural sustainability
hi/stories (our research object), connected histories and transregional sustainability politics (our
analytical concepts).
1a. The research object: plural sustainability hi/stories
We engage with sustainability history to clarify the three constituent terms of plural sustainability
hi/stories. Concerning hi/stories, we take the lead from sustainability historians who study regional or
global sustainability narratives (cf. Grober 2012; Caradonna 2014; Warde 2018; Schleper 2019). SOY
STORIES studies historical actors’ narratives, which we refer to as hi/stories (cf. van der Vleuten & de
Hoop, 2022). Inspired by (critical) historical discourse analysis, we investigate such narratives’ historical
context, characters and events, emplotments, and temporal dynamics (Achugar 2017; Knudsen, &
Gram-Skjoldager 2014; Flowerdew 2012).
Concerning plural hi/stories: Historical actors articulate their regions’ key challenges and whether
regions can sustain themselves in diverse and conflicting ways (Warde 2018). SOY STORIES therefore
takes the lead from recent sustainability history inspired by Warde (2018) which denaturalizes and
politicizes sustainability narratives by researching the multiple and potentially conflicting narratives
that diverse actors tell about soy-related sustainability challenges (Moss & Weber 2021; Van der
Vleuten & de Hoop 2022).
Finally, concerning plural sustainability hi/stories: The novel field of sustainability history interconnects
the long-standing fields of economic, social, and environmental history (Caradonna 2018). Researching
regional sustainability histories, the field eschews a priori definition of the contested and anachronistic
term ‘sustainability’, which some associate with universalistic, growth-preserving, or neocolonial
ideologies (Bonneuil & Fressoz 2016:20; Elliott et al. 2017:4). SOY STORIES, too, uses ‘sustainability’ as
a sensitizing concept to study historical actors’ entwined economic, social and environmental
narratives (Caradonna 2018) of the endurance, collapse or transformation of livelihoods and
ecosystems (in a variation on Warde 2018: 5), regardless of whether they use the term ‘sustainability’.
Given these considerations, SOY STORIES starts out by identifying and contrasting diverse historical
actors’ sustainability hi/stories within Dutch and Brazilian regions (see research question 1a).
1b. Analysing sustainability hi/stories as connected histories
Next, SOY STORIES analyses how sustainability hi/stories on both sides of the Atlantic were
interconnected. SOY STORIES takes a relational historiographical approach, as developed in both global
and transnational history (Epple 2018) and global environmental history (O’Gorman & Gaynor 2020),
which studies the specificity and diversity of interrelated regional histories. This is distinctly different
from a history of relations, which traditionally focussed on the relations between entities, and which
tends to study diverse histories across the globe from the perspective of a common logic (e.g.

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capitalism) (Beckert et al. 2021a; 2021b; Marques 2021; Wentzlhuemer 2020; Heymann et al. 2020;
Johnson 2022). Instead, SOY STORIES particularly draws on the relational historiographical tradition of
connected history, which studies how diverse interrelated histories of distant regions articulated each-
other (Subrahmanyam 1997, 2017; De Hoop & Vleuten 2022). SOY STORIES hence asks how Brazilian
sustainability hi/stories were variously (un)represented in connected Dutch sustainability challenges
and vice versa (see research question 1b).
1c. Analysing the transregional politics of sustainability hi/stories
Finally, SOY STORIES asks ‘so what?’: why is it important to study how plural sustainability hi/stories
in both regions (did not) represent each-other? Its answer is that this matters greatly for the
sustainability politics involved in addressing their sustainability challenges.
Here, we take our cue from the emerging literature informed by Science and Technology Studies
(STS) and governmentality on sustainability knowledge politics (Jenssen et al. 2018; Voß & Freeman
2016), which argues that what and whose concerns are made (in)visible in sustainability knowledges
and narratives has implications for what and whose concerns feature in imaginaries for more
sustainable futures. When deployed in the context of transregionally connected sustainability
challenges, this approach also directs attention towards the geographical location of actors whose
concerns and responsibilities do (not) feature in imagined futures (see De Hoop & van der Vleuten
2022 for the case of palm oil research). SOY STORIES therefore investigates hi/stories’ articulations of
the future with respect to which and whose sustainability futures, for which regions, were
foregrounded and backgrounded, and who, from where, was made responsible for realizing these
futures (or acquitted from such responsibilities) (see research question 1c).
2. Actionable historiography: towards more inclusive sustainable future imaginaries
To realize objective 2, we combine historiography with transdisciplinary research for sustainable
futures (TDR) to investigate empirically how soy STORIES’ historiographical knowledge may reshape
present-day imaginaries of the future (research question 2a) and to study how both historiography
and TDR can learn from each other (research questions 2b and 2c).
Reflexive actionable historiography: TDR studies and reshapes scientific knowledge production
processes to contribute to better science and to more sustainable futures (Bunders, Broerse et al.
2010; Kok et al. 2021, Fazey et al. 2020; Köhler et al. 2019; Fransman 2018). Key therein is the notion
of reflexivity, which includes monitoring how research activities contribute to addressing a particular
societal problem. Crucially, TDR does not self-identify with societal problems: reflexivity also implies
monitoring changes in problem- and solution statements (van Mierlo et al. 2010; Loeber et al. 2007).
SOY STORIES’ hence investigates if and how its hi/stories contribute to more inclusive (i.e. (inclusive of
challenges across the Atlantic) sustainable future imaginaries among contemporary stakeholders of
soy-connected sustainability challenges, while also critically interrogating what ‘inclusive sustainable
future imaginaries’ may come to constitute in the process (see question 2a).
Implications for historiographical research: TDR argues that rendering scientific knowledge actionable
requires reshaping the knowledge production process in collaboration with present-day stakeholders
(Mach et al. 2020; Turnhout et al. 2020; Kok et al. 2021; Nowotny et al. 2003; Lang et al. 2012).
However, critics warn against instrumentalization of history, presentism, and compromising critical
historical distance (for a recent discussion: Moss & Weber 2021; Holbrook & Lowe 2021). To avoid

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these noteworthy pitfalls, SOY STORIES draws on the notion of reflexivity introduced above to create
critical distance: throughout the research process, SOY STORIES will make explicit how, for what
reasons and with what implications, stakeholders’ contributions play a role in its research (cf. de Hoop
2020; Zuiderent-Jerak 2015; Mobjörk 2010). This critical distance, along with SOY STORIES’
pluralization and politicization of sustainability narratives (objective 1), is what allows SOY STORIES to
combine critical historiography with making relevant contributions to address today’s soy-connected
sustainability challenges (cf. Tosh 2014). Given the novelty of drawing on TDR for historical research,
SOY STORIES investigates the implications thereof for historical research practices and approaches (see
research question 2b).
Implications for TDR: SOY STORIES uniquely brings connected histories to TDR. Existing TDR is
predominantly geared towards understanding and addressing present-future relations of
geographically delineated sustainability challenges, and engagement with history and connected
challenges has been limited so far (Fazey et al. 2020; van Mierlo et al. 2010). Indeed, some TDR scholars
caution that drawing on historical knowledge can constrain imaginations of the future (Fazey et al.
2020). However, SOY STORIES’ pluralization of sustainability histories has the potential to open up
rather than constrains future imaginations. SOY STORIES therefore explicitly investigates how
connected historiography can enrich TDR practices and approaches (see research question 2c).
Research questions
1. How did soy-related sustainability hi/stories in Brazil and the Netherlands connect and
interact, and with what implications (1950s-now)?
a. PLURALITY AND DIVERSITY: Which and whose sustainability hi/stories can be identified
within each region, and how do they differ from each other?
b. CONNECTED HISTORIES: How do these hi/stories engage with or ignore overseas
sustainability hi/stories (particularly in Brazil and the Netherlands)?
c. SUSTAINABILITY POLITICS: What are the implications of the answer to the foregoing
subquestions for which and whose sustainability futures, for which regions, these
hi/stories articulated, and who, from where, was (not) made responsible for realizing these
futures?
2. How can plural-and-connected sustainability history knowledge become actionable, in a
reflexive manner, for the development of more inclusive sustainable future imaginaries?
a. STUDY ACTIONABILITY: How do SOY STORIES’ plural-and-connected sustainability hi/stories
reshape present-day stakeholders’ imaginaries of sustainable and inclusive futures?
b. IMPLICATIONS FOR HISTORIOGRAPHY: What are the implications of drawing on TDR to
render historical knowledge actionable, in a reflexive manner, for historical research?
c. IMPLICATIONS FOR TDR: How can plural-and-connected sustainability historiography enrich
transdisciplinary sustainability research for more sustainable and inclusive futures?

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3. RESEARCH DESIGN
Answering RQ1a, 1b, 1c and 2a requires symmetrical engagement with soy sustainability hi/stories and
future imaginaries in Brazil and in the Netherlands, which therefore constitute the focus of WP1 (PhD1)
and WP2 (PhD2), respectively. Close collaboration between both WPs will be realized through our
research design (see below), work plan (section B6) and shared PhD supervision. This is critical to study
how one region’s hi/stories and future imaginaries engaged with or ignored overseas hi/stories and
future imaginaries (RQ1b and 2a). WP3 answers RQ2b and 2c, and provides methodological support to
WP1 and WP2 to answer RQ2a. WP4 synthesizes all project results to answer overarching RQ1 (for
both Brazil and the Netherlands at the same time) and 2.
Table 1: Work Packages
Work packages
Research question
WP1: Brazilian connected soy sustainability hi/stories and future imaginaries
1a, 1b, 1c, 2a for Brazilian regions
WP2: Dutch connected soy sustainability hi/stories and future imaginaries
1a, 1b, 1c, 2a for Dutch regions
WP3: Methodological and conceptual innovation in historiography and TDR
2b, 2c; 2a support
WP4: Synthesis
1 and 2
Research design
SOY STORIES starts with a double baseline study of soy historiography and present-day stakeholders’
conceptions of past, present and future. Next, alternating phases of historical research (WP1&2, RQ1a,
1b and 1c) and TDR-based stakeholder interaction (WP1&2, RQ2a) are supported by continuous
methodological and conceptual innovation and reflection (WP3, RQ2b and 2c) and a science museum
exhibit. This iterative design allows for continuous adaptation based on progressing insights, which is
critical to exploit stakeholders’ sensitivities to broaden and politicize our historical research, and to
render SOY STORIES’ historical knowledge actionable for more inclusive sustainable future imaginaries.
This design will be used simultaneously in Brazil and in the Netherlands. WP1 and WP2 collaborate
closely: the two PhDs will be required to set and adjust their research approach together, and will
share and contrast their findings at the end of each phase of in-depth historical research. All Brazilian
and Dutch historical research findings (RQ1a, 1b and 1c) will be discussed with both Brazilian and Dutch
stakeholders (informing RQ2a). Section B6 translates this research design into a work plan with
timeline.
Figure 2: Research design

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4. METHODS AND SOURCES
Historical research
Temporal delineation: SOY STORIES identifies and investigates hi/stories produced by historical actors
in relevant Dutch and Brazilian regions from the 1950s until today. In the 1950s, the foundations for
industrial agriculture were put in place in both countries, preparing the 1970s acceleration of Brazilian
soy cultivation and Dutch soy-based intensive animal farming (da Silva & de Majo 2021a; Haalboom
2020; Van der Vleuten & de Hoop in press). Longer timeframes are only studied as articulated by
investigated hi/stories (e.g. their attributions of their sustainability challenges’ origins to earlier
periods).
Spatial delineation: SOY STORIES studies regional hotspots: e.g. the Atlantic forest (the first Brazilian
region exporting soy to Europe and birthplace of the agribusiness approach dominant across Brazil’s
soy plantations today), the Cerrado (where soy cultivation expanded in the early 2000s) (da Silva & de
Majo 2021a), the Dutch Peel (an early and highly controversial factory farming hotspot) (van der
Vleuten & de Hoop, accepted), and peatlands around Amsterdam (only suitable for animal farming yet
threatened by soil subsidence; van der Weijden et al. 2021). Other regions (e.g. in China, North
America) are only studied as articulated by investigated hi/stories’.
Actor selection: SOY STORIES maximizes diversity by investigating both dominant historical actors’
hi/stories and hi/stories of historical actors who complemented or challenged the former. Examples in
Brazil include: Alprosoja (soybean producers’ association), EPAGRI (State Rural Extension Company),
former state secretary of agriculture Aírton Spies, the Landless Workers Movement, and farmer
advisors (vereador). For the Netherlands: the former Ministry of Agriculture and Fishing, the Cebeco-
Handelsraad, local farmers’ associations, and Friends of the Earth Netherlands. Definite actor selection
will take place after the double baseline study (figure 2).
Sources & methods: Investigating both dominant and non-dominant actors’ hi/stories (often absent
from conventional sources) requires combining analysis of a wide diversity of written sources (table 2)
with oral history (cf. Hecht 2012). To conduct oral history, we will interview elderly who will be
identified through snowballing (with historical sources and present-day stakeholders as entry points).
Our analysis will be guided by research questions 1a, 1b and 1c (following Jóhannesson 2010). For
digitized sources, we draw on our experience with digital humanities methods to meaningfully analyse
large numbers of records (de Hoop and van der Vleuten, in press).
Table 2: Inventory of written sources (accessible publically/through partners), to be adapted during
the baseline study
Media
NL: Delpher; LexisNexis
BR: Media databases, e.g. O producto (São
Paulo); Ciência para todos (RJ); A Agricultura
(Santa Catarina)
Government
NL: Historical Dutch Parliamentary debates and
documents.
NGOs
NL: IISG Amsterdam (archives of multiple
NGOs)
BR: Instituto socioambiental; WWF Brazil
Companies
NL: Cebeco-Handelsraad (former agricultural
purchasing association); Nevedi (feed
producers’ association); FrieslandCampina
(largest dairy producer)

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BR: Digital Hemeroteca (national digital
archive)
Science
NL+BR: Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar
BR: Cooperalfa (former major agricultural
cooperative)
Stakeholder interaction
Stakeholder selection: To maximize diversity, we engage with 16 stakeholder organizations on an
annual basis: two (with different interests and outlooks) per Quadruple Helix category (industry,
government, NGOs, research; cf. Carayannis and Campbell 2009) per country. All selected stakeholders
seek to address soy-related sustainability challenges and have expressed willingness to openly discuss
their ideas (see table 7 in section B6).
Methods: SOY STORIES faces three challenges to answer RQ2a: existing TDR’s stakeholder interaction
methods 1) are geared towards present-future relations; 2) focus on individual (global North)
sustainability challenges (van Mierlo et al. 2010; Breda & Swilling 2018); and 3) draw heavily on
constructive interaction between stakeholders, but soy-related sustainability challenges are highly
sensitive. To address challenge 1 and 2, WP3 innovates existing TDR methods developed by the co-
applicant’s Athena Institute to engage with past-present-future relationships, transnational
connections, and Brazilian contexts (table 3). To address challenge 3, stakeholder interaction will
initially take place one-on-one. Multi-stakeholder meetings to deepen the analysis will be organized
based on careful choices with regard to who participates, the setting and deliberation format, and the
discussion agenda (cf. Chilvers & Longhurst 2016).
Science museum exhibits: following recent science museology (see Schuijer et al., 2022 – the co-
applicant is co-author; Bandelli & Konijn, 2015), the science museum exhibits perform knowledge
dissemination and citizen science by encouraging (elderly) visitors to share and record their own soy-
related hi/stories (towards RQ1a, 1b, 1c) and by inviting its visitors to debate the implications of SOY
STORIES’ hi/stories for inclusive sustainable future imaginaries (towards RQ2a). Relevant musea that
confirmed to host the exibits: Discovery Museum, Centro de Memória de Oeste Catrinense.
Table 3: TDR methods, focus & key innovations
Method
Focus
Innovation
System analysis (van
Mierlo et al. 2010)
Identify relevant historical actors. Informs the
historical research approach
Include historical legacy and transnational
connections in system analysis
Transformation-
frame (Huitzing et al.
2021)
Map and monitor stakeholders’ future
imaginaries in relation to their ideas on the
present-day and the past. Used to answer RQ2a
Expand here-and-know focus with
historical and transnational dimensions
Science Museum
Exhibit
Knowledge dissemination and citizen science.
Used to answer RQ 1 and 2a.
Develop transnationally interconnected
exhibits.

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5. ACADEMIC RELEVANCE
The ground-breaking character of SOY STORIES stems from intimate collaboration between
sustainability historians from both sides of the Atlantic and TDR. This section outlines our key
innovations, scientific relevance and urgency with respect to especially sustainability history and TDR.
Plural, connected and transformative sustainability histories
The young field of sustainability history has two important and timely ambitions: it (1) places the
entwinement of economic, social, and environmental histories center-stage; and (2) explicitly connects
historiography to present-day sustainability debates (research agenda: Caradonna 2018). We make
two critical contributions. First, SOY STORIES pioneers a novel approach to study plural-and-connected
sustainability histories. This approach engages with global sustainability challenges while
simultaneously bringing highly diverse articulations and priorities across the globe to the fore. This is
crucial: without such an approach, sustainability history risks (rightful) dismissal as either (a) yet
another unreflective projection of ‘Global North’ concerns onto the globe with its quasi-universal
histories of predominantly global North sustainability ideas (Grober 2012; Caradonna 2014; Warde
2018; Schleper 2019); or (b) parochialist, producing regional sustainability histories that ignore or
black-box (e.g. through a footprint approach, cf. Lintsen 2018) interrelated regions. Second, SOY
STORIES addresses sustainability history’s important yet poorly substantiated aim to inform present-
day sustainability debates: we integrate TDR research approaches in historiographical research and
systematically research the effects thereof. The scarce sustainability historiography (and related
environmental and technological historiography) that uses related concepts (e.g. applied history,
public history and usable pasts) currently does not proactively investigate the impacts of their
historiography (cf. Hirsch & Jones 2014; Divall et al. 2017; Emanuel et al. 2020; Rubio Varas et al. 2021;
Moss & Weber 2021).
Transdisciplinary sustainability research (TDR)
TDR seeks to reshape knowledge systems to address pressing sustainability challenges (research
agendas: Fazey et al. 2018; Caniglia et al. 2021). SOY STORIES makes three critical contributions to this
ambition. First, SOY STORIES introduces engagement with historical knowledge. Plural and connected
historiography has the potential to bring a wealth of different paradigms, ways of thinking and
imaginations to the fore. This is crucial to TDR: while it stresses the importance of transcending current
paradigms, ways of thinking and imaginations (Fazey et al. 2018), its focus on present-day challenges
and their solutions constrain its imaginations (Kok et al. 2021).
Second, SOY STORIES introduces engagement with connected sustainability challenges and their
geographically dispersed stakeholders. This is an important and timely contribution because many of
today’s sustainability challenges are highly connected and multi-sited, yet TDR has predominantly been
applied to single-site cases (den Boer et al. 2021).
Third, SOY STORIES places sustainability politics center stage both in its empirical research (RQ1c) and
in its methodological innovations (RQ2b and 2c), thereby enlarging the space for diverse voices, ways
of living and future imaginations rather than subsuming stakeholders’ diversity under a single
overarching logic that erases differences from view. This is important: when TDR projects fail, this can
often be attributed to insufficient space for diversity and attentiveness towards the role of politics in
researching and addressing sustainability challenges (Turnhout et al. 2020).

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6. Societal relevance
Because SOY STORIES investigates how historiography can be rendered actionable, producing societal
impact is an integral part of the research project. Figure 3 presents the societal output, outcome and
impact we would hope to realize, following NWO’s definition of the terms. We would like the reader
to engage with the figure and text below as an attempt to critically engage with the possible
performativity of our work, rather than a prediction of the future.
Figure 3: Impact pathway
To work towards output (1), SOY STORIES combines diverse historical research approaches with TDR.
To work towards output (2), SOY STORIES conducts high-quality productive interactions (in NWO
terms) with visitors of the museum exhibit and with diverse stakeholders. With regard to the latter,
SOY STORIES organizes yearly reflection sessions with stakeholders to discuss the implications of SOY
STORIES’ historical research findings for stakeholders’ soy-related future imaginaries, using cutting-
edge TDR methodologies (table 3). To contribute outcome (1), SOY STORIES produces historical
knowledge that is inclusive in nature: it includes both dominant and non-dominant actors’ hi/stories.
Furthermore, the research design (see figure 2) seeks to render these historical investigations relevant
to (and also critically assess) stakeholders’ present-day concerns. With regard to outcome (2), SOY
STORIES takes part in the public debate on soy in the Netherlands and in Brazil through its engagement
with key stakeholders and through the establishment of an interactive science museum exhibit in
which publics debate the implications of SOY STORIES’ hi/stories. Outcome (2) is important for impact
(1). Wide dissemination of SOY STORIES’ research results will also be part of our hope to realize impact
(1). Finally, SOY STORIES hopes to be a starting point for a new way of both historiographical and
future-oriented research to be applied in the context of a wide diversity of connected sustainability
challenges (relevant for impact (2)).
SOY STORIES actively creates opportunities for unforeseen knowledge utilization and societal impact
during all phases of the NWO Impact Outlook Approach’s ‘Cycle of curiosity-driven research’. First, we
mobilize our collaboration with diverse key stakeholders to acquire additional funding and identify
additional outlets for knowledge sharing and utilization. Second, through stakeholders’ active
involvement, we hope to enhance the relevance of, and stakeholders’ ownership of, the historical
knowledge that is produced, and thereby enhancing the likelihood of knowledge utilization. Third,
understanding and improving knowledge utilization constitutes a key research focus in SOY STORIES,
and progressive insight thereon will inform continuous adaptation of our research approach to
strengthen both scientific quality and knowledge utilization.

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