In recent decades, there has been a proliferation of alternative food networks which promote an agenda of reconnection, allegedly linking consumers and producers to the socio-ecological origins of food. Rarely, however, does the AFN literature address “origins” of food in terms of animals, as in the case of meat. This article takes a relational approach to the reconnection agenda between humans and animals by discussing how the phenomenon of animal welfare and “happy” meat are enacted by producers and consumers in (...) mundane, embodied, and nuanced ways. Utilizing hybrid conceptualizations of human–animal relations through “natureculture” and “being alongside”, we demonstrate that consumers and producers of AFNs perform natureculture entanglements daily, often considering humans and animals as part of one another and the ecological system. Nonetheless, we also point to how participants in AFNs set boundaries to distance themselves from moments of animal life and death, explaining away uncomfortable affective naturecultures through commodification logics. Drawing on qualitative data from consumers and producers of food networks in Austria, we introduce the concept of “human–animal magnetism” to illustrate that the draw for humans to care about other animal lives exists within a spectrum of attraction and disassociation, engendered through specific human–animal interactions. Ultimately, we offer a cautiously hopeful version of alterity in AFNs of meat in which more caring human–animal relations are possible. (shrink)

Alternative food networks have become a common response to the socio-ecological injustices generated by the industrialized food system. Using a political ecology framework, this paper evaluates the emergence of an AFN in Chiapas, Mexico. While the Mexican context presents a particular set of challenges, the case study also reveals the strength the alternative food movement derives from a diverse network of actors committed to building a “community economy” that reasserts the multifunctional values of organic agriculture and local commodity chains. Nonetheless, (...) just as the AFN functions as an important livelihood strategy for otherwise disenfranchised producers it simultaneously encounters similar limitations as those observed in other market-driven approaches to sustainable food governance. (shrink)

Agrifood scholars commonly adopt “a matter of fact way of speaking” to talk about the extent of neoliberal rollout in the food sector and the viability of “alternatives” to capitalist food initiatives. Over the past few decades this matter of fact stance has resulted in heated debate in agrifood scholarship on two distinct battlegrounds namely, the corporate food regime and the alternative food regime. In this paper I identify some of the limitations of speaking in a matter of fact way (...) and of focusing on capitalist and neoliberal economies as the yardstick by which to assess all food economy initiatives. Using stories of bananas in Australia and the Philippines I advocate for a new mode of critical inquiry in food scholarship that focuses on matters of concern. Following Bruno Latour I use the term critical inquiry to refer to research methods and thinking practices that multiply possible ways of being and acting in the world. The new mode of critical inquiry I propose centers on enacting three broad research matters of concern. These are gathering and assembling economic diversity human actancy and nonhuman actancy. I argue that through becoming critical minds in the Latourian sense researchers can play a key role in enacting economic food futures in the Anthropocene. (shrink)

Amid the many food safety scandals that have erupted in recent years, Chinese food activists and consumers are turning to the creation of alternative food networks to ensure better control over their food. These Chinese AFNs have not been documented in the growing literature on food studies. Based on in-depth interviews and case studies, this paper documents and develops a typology of AFNs in China, including community supported agriculture, farmers’ markets, buying clubs, and recreational garden plot rentals. We unpacked the (...) four standard dimensions of alternativeness of AFNs into eight elements and used these to examine the alternativeness of AFNs in China. We argue first that the landscape of alternativeness varies among different networks but the healthfulness of food is the most prominent element. Second, there is an inconsistency in values between AFN initiators and customers, which contributes to the uneven alternativeness of Chinese AFNs. Third, Chinese AFNs are strongly consumer driven, a factor that constrains their alternativeness at present. The inclusion of “real” peasants in the construction of AFNs in China is minimal. This paper adds to the existing literature on AFNs with an analysis of recent initiatives in China that have not been well documented before. By unpacking the dimensions of alternativeness into specific elements, this paper also provides an analytical framework for examining the alternativeness of AFNs especially nascent ones that have not developed a full spectrum of alternativeness. (shrink)

Despite the widespread use of the concept of embeddedness in the literature on agri-food networks, not much has been written on the process through which a food economy becomes embedded. To explore this dynamic and contribute to a more critical perspective on the meanings and implications of embeddedness in the context of food, this paper analyzes the emergence of saffron as a local food network in southern Tuscany. By adopting a constructivist approach, the analysis shows that embeddedness assumes simultaneously a (...) social, spatial, and temporal dimension that are dynamically created by participants in the saffron economy as a response to specific market requirements. The paper concludes that a focus on how embeddedness is achieved in the context of food has both theoretical and empirical implications. Theoretically, it supports the need for a more holistic and actor-oriented approach that takes into consideration the tensions inherent in the process of embedding and also its ramifications outside of the social realm. Practically, a focus on how a food network comes to be embedded complicates the notion of food relocalization – an issue that raises empirical questions about the sustainability of local food networks and their contribution to rural development. (shrink)

The term ‘food security’ has been used in multiple ways and addresses not only issues around availability and accessibility of foods, but also, among others, the sustainability of livelihoods at the local community level—an issue often seen as a basis for the proliferation of local and alternative food networks. Accordingly, in this paper we attempt to develop a theoretical re-framing that is able to link food security with AFNs in arguing that the understanding of the two notions is dynamics and (...) contingent upon the elements that construct them. We use an assemblage approach to analyze a case of Dunedin, a small-size city in New Zealand, in which the community aims to achieve food security through a local food strategy. Through a series of interviews with a group of food activists and academics, public discussions, and two local food forums, we found that food security was understood and performed in its local context through assembling diverse actors and objectives within the AFN. In conclusion, we offer assemblage thinking as an analytical tool to understand how seemingly precarious local food relations are stabilized and assembled so as to open possibilities of achieving food security. (shrink)

This introduction situates key themesfound in papers given at a recent workshop on thechanging material practices, meanings, and regulationof US organic food production. The context is theemergence of an international bio-politics ofagriculture and food and, more particularly in the US,the contradictions of sustainable agriculturemovements catalyzed by the rapid scaling up of organicagriculture from a niche activity to nascentindustry.

In an increasingly globalized food economy, local agri-food initiatives are promoted as more sustainable alternatives, both for small-scale producers and ecologically conscious consumers. However, revitalizing local agri-food communities in rural agro-industrial regions is particularly challenging. This case study examines Grant and Chelan Counties, two industrial farming regions in rural Central Washington State, distant from the urban fringe. Farmers in these counties have tried diversifying large-scale processing into organics and marketing niche and organic produce at popular farmers markets in Seattle about (...) 200 miles away. Such strategies invoke the question, “How are ‘local’ agri-food networks socially and geographically defined?” The meaning of what constitutes “local” and/or “sustainable” systems merits consideration in the linking of these rural counties with distant urban farmers markets. Employing historical, in-depth interview and survey research, we analyze production and consumption networks and the non-market systems that residents in these counties access for self-provisioning and food security. (shrink)

Local food systems are growing, and little is known about how the constellation of farms and markets change over time. We trace the evolution of two local food systems over six years, including a dataset of over 2690 market connections between 1520 locations. Longitudinal social network analysis reveals how the architecture, actor network centrality, magnitude, and spatiality of these supply chains shifted during the 2012–2018 time period. Our findings demonstrate that, despite growth in the number of farmers’ markets, grocery stores, (...) farms and restaurants in both counties, each local food system also experienced high turnover rates. Over 80% of the market connections changed during the study period. Farms, farmers’ markets, and grocery stores showed a 40–50% ‘survival’ rate, indicating their role in sustaining local food systems over longer time periods. Other actors, such as restaurants, had a much higher turnover rate within the network. Both food systems became more close-knit and consolidated as the center of gravity for both local food systems pulled away from urban areas toward rural farmland. Evidence of both growth and decay within local food systems provides a new understanding of the social networks behind local food markets. (shrink)

In this article, I analyze discourse and identity relations within so-called ‘conventional’ agri-food networks as well as how the conventional sphere perceives, constructs and responds to alternative food movements in Canada. The paper is structured around three primary research questions: How are conventional actors understanding conditions, changes, and challenges within conventional networks? How do conventional actors apply this understanding in advancing conventional interests and discourses, and defending conventional networks? How do conventional actors and discourse construct AFMs? For this research, I (...) draw from survey, focus group, and in-depth interview data alongside text analysis from online sources. I elucidate the interests and motivations behind the identities, stories and messages emerging from the conventional sphere. I conclude that relationship building and communication between diverse agri-food actors may help to expand the range of agricultural knowledge, philosophies and solutions available to farmers, especially those whom are currently quite divided. (shrink)

The social dimension of purchase seems particularly important when it comes to food, since it can contribute to foster “consumers’ embeddedness” in the local food system. The discussion on this topic is growing after the emergence of alternative food networks , which are thought to have potentials to re-connect the different actors of local food systems, and/or to strengthen the existing social ties among them. This study focuses on the evaluation of the degree of sociality in different food shopping environments. (...) The research is focused on the structure and the features of the interactions, with the aim to provide an assessment of the degree of sociality of AFNs compared to other food chain networks. More specifically, a farmers’ market, a greengrocer and a supermarket have been compared. The three shopping environments show remarkable differences: in the supermarket perfunctory interactions are most often observed, unless shoppers already know each other, whereas the farmers’ market environment is likely to foster quite intense relations among strangers; the greengrocer, on the contrary, shows a completely different pattern of relations, typically involving customers who already know each other. Results support the common argument that farmers’ markets may enhance sociality among people, although some interesting relations patterns are observed in the other food stores as well. Issues for further research in the field emerge, which might be useful to improve the understanding of the social dimension of food shopping as well as to more deeply analyse the elements of attractiveness of AFNs. (shrink)

Farmers’ markets, often structured as non-profit or cooperative organizations, play a prominent role in emerging alternative food networks of western Canada. The contribution of these social economy organizations to network development may relate, in part, to the process of regional clustering. In this study we explore the nature and significance of farmers’ market clustering in the western Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, focusing on the possible connection between clustering and a “scaling up” of alternative food networks. Survey and (...) interview results from four regional clusters indicate that in addition to spatial agglomeration, dynamic processes of interaction and knowledge exchange are occurring and are shaped by vendor mobility as well as collaborative and competitive forces. Horizontal and vertical collaborations are resulting in innovative strategies to address challenges of scale, scope, infrastructure, and organizational capacity that are prevalent in alternative food networks. Government support for market clustering has been modest to date but, we argue, could play a more prominent role in facilitating cluster development as part of a broader collaborative strategy involving public, private, and social economy sectors in the scaling up of alternative food networks. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the impacts of agrarian change and social reorganisation on gender-nature relations through the lens of an indigenous group named the Kuruma in South India. Building upon recent work of feminist political ecology, I uncover a number of dualisms attached to the gender-nature nexus and put forward that gender roles are constituted by social relations which need to be analysed with regard to the transformative potential of gender-nature relations. Three main themes are at the centre of the (...) empirical inquiry: gender subjectivities, rural off-farm employment and the human-nature nexus. I seek to show that, first, the production of gendered subjectivities cannot be simplified through essentialist assumptions that romanticise women’s relationships with nature; second, off-farm employment strategies both reinforce the social hierarchy in gender and contradict the Kuruma’s moral economies; and, finally, environmental and agrarian change redefine the use of agrobiodiversity and are related to ideas on progressive versus nonprogressive cultivation practices. The research is informed by qualitative research methods and offers a conceptual approach to the deconstruction of gender-nature relations from a poststructuralist feminist perspective. (shrink)

Dominant food systems, based on industrial methods and corporate control, are in a state of flux. To enable the transition towards more sustainable and just food systems, food movements are claiming new roles in governance. These movements, and the initiatives they spearhead, are associated with a range of labels (e.g., food sovereignty, food justice, and community food security) and use a variety of strategies to enact change. In this paper, we use the concept of relational fields to conduct a post-hoc (...) analysis of nine cases, examining how social movement organizations and other actors actively create new deliberative governance spaces. We argue that successes are related to the “power to convene,” a process-oriented approach that increases movements’ capacity to mobilize; leverage different types of power; and integrate, coordinate, and build a systems-oriented vision. The power to convene and create deliberative spaces is demonstrated in a variety of contexts and often results in outcomes that further movement aims, including policy change and repositioning food movement actors vis-à-vis others in the field. Our findings suggest that success is not only measured as policy outcomes, but as an advantageous repositioning of social movement actors that enables them to be part of governance processes beyond simple policy advocacy. (shrink)