Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Hope Alkon ◽  
Julie Guthman
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
To Come ◽  
Economic Inequalities

This chapter argues that food activists need to look beyond the politics of their plates to engage with broader questions of racial and economic inequalities, strategy and political transformation. It grounds the examples that follow in two ongoing scholarly debates. The first regards the role of inequalities, particularly of race and class, in shaping past and present industrial and alternative food systems. The second looks to strategies and tactics. While some have argued that the provision of relatively apolitical alternatives to industrial food systems lays the groundwork for transformative change, the editors of this volume urge activists to follow those profiled in this book towards more cooperative, oppositional and collective strategic choices. The introduction ends with an overview of the chapters to come.

scholarly journals Alternative Agri-Food Systems Under a Market Agencements Approach: The Case of Multifunctional Farming Activity in a Peri-Urban Area

Environments ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Maria Cecilia Mancini ◽  
Filippo Arfini ◽  
Federico Antonioli ◽  
Marianna Guareschi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Area ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Alternative Food Networks ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Trade Offs

(1) Background: A large body of literature is available on the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of alternative food systems, but not much of it is devoted to the dynamics underlying their design and implementation, more specifically the processes that make an alternative food system successful or not in terms of its sustainability aims. This gap seems to be particularly critical in studies concerning alternative food systems in urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA). This paper explores how the design and implementation of multifunctional farming activity in a peri-urban area surrounding the city of Reggio Emilia in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy impact the achievement of its sustainability aims. (2) Methods: The environmental, social, and economic components of this project are explored in light of the sociology of market agencements. This method brings up the motivations of the human entities involved in the project, the role played by nonhuman entities, and the technical devices used for the fulfillment of the project’s aims. (3) Results: The alternative food system under study lacked a robust design phase and a shared definition of the project aims among all the stakeholders involved. This ended in a substantial mismatch between project aims and consumer expectations. (4) Conclusions: When a comprehensive design stage is neglected, the threefold aim concerning sustainability might not be achievable. In particular, the design of alternative food systems must take into account the social environment where it is intended to be put in place, especially in UPA, where consumers often live in suburban neighborhoods wherein the sense of community is not strong, thus preventing them from getting involved in a community-based project. In such cases, hybridization can play a role in the sustainability of alternative food networks, provided that some trade-offs occur among the different components of sustainability—some components of sustainability will be fully achieved, while others will not.

scholarly journals Nonhuman Animal Rights, Alternative Food Systems, and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

PhaenEx ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey Lee Wrenn
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Nonhuman Animal ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Alternative Systems ◽  
Nonhuman Animals

Alternative food systems (namely the humane product movement) have arisen to address societal concerns with the treatment of Nonhuman Animals in food production. This paper presents an abolitionist Nonhuman Animal rights approach (Francione, 1996) and critiques these alternative systems as problematic in regards to goals of considering the rights or welfare of Nonhuman Animals. It is proposed that the trend in social movement professionalization within the structure of a non-profit industrial complex will ultimately favor compromises like “humane” products over more radical abolitionist solutions to the detriment of Nonhuman Animals. This paper also discusses potential compromises for alternative food systems that acknowledge equal consideration for Nonhuman Animals, focusing on grassroots veganism as a necessary component for consistency and effectiveness.

scholarly journals Citizenship and Consumption: Mobilisation in Alternative Food Systems in France

2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 304-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier ◽  
Claire Lamine ◽  
Ronan Le Velly
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Alternative Food Systems

Stacking Beliefs and Participation in Alternative Food Systems

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurel Valchuis ◽  
David S. Conner ◽  
Linda Berlin ◽  
Qingbin Wang
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Alternative Food Systems

scholarly journals Planning for change: Transformation labs for an alternative food system in Cape Town, South Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Pereira ◽  
Scott Drimie ◽  
Olive Zgambo ◽  
Reinette Biggs
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Transformative Change

AbstractThere has been a call for more participatory processes to feed into urban planning for more resilient food systems. This paper describes a process of knowledge co-production for transforming towards an alternative food system in Cape Town, South Africa. A ‘transformative space’ was created though a T-Lab process involving change-agents advocating for an alternative food system, and was designed to discuss challenges in the local food system from a range of perspectives, in order to co-develop potentially transformative innovations that could feed into government planning. In this paper, we describe and reflect on the T-lab in order to consider whether its design was able to meet its objective: to initiate an experimental phase of coalition-building by diverse actors that could feed into the provincial government’s strategic focus on food and nutrition security. Our findings indicate that T-labs have the potential to be important mechanisms for initiating and sustaining transformative change. They can be complementary to urban planning processes seeking to transform complex social-ecological systems onto more sustainable development pathways. However, as with all experimental co-production processes, there is significant learning and refinement that is necessary to ensure the process can reach its full potential. A key challenge we encountered was how to foster diversity and difference in opinions in the context of significant historical legacies of inequality, whilst simultaneously acting for ‘the common good’ and seeking ways to scale impact across different contexts. The paper concludes with deliberations on the nature of planning and navigating towards systemic transformative change.

Indigenous Food Systems: Battling Whiteness through Decolonization

1969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie King
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Community Gardens ◽  
The United States ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Farmers Markets ◽  
Alternative Food Networks ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The North

Shaw (2006) argues that “the rubrics of difference against which Whiteness is commonly juxtaposed rarely includes Indigeneity, or the experiences of Indigenous peoples regardless of the North American domination of the field, and its settler context” (853). Viewing Canada and the United States as post-colonial nations, this paper seeks to broaden understandings of Indigenous food production, distribution, and consumption practices and/or projects and how they work to resist colonial histories of oppression. hooks (1992) defines decolonization as “a process of cultural and historical liberation; an act of confrontation with a dominant system of thought” (1). Using the concept of “Whiteness”, this research attempts to prove how small-scale Indigenous food systems located in North America decolonize dominant ways of seeing alternative food systems as white food spaces. To present this research to an interdisciplinary audience I will first attend to defining key concepts informing this research including: post-colonial nation, decolonization, Whiteness, and Indigeneity. I will then spend some time exploring what Sarah Whatmore describes as “Alternative Food Networks” (AFNs) and claims as “white food spaces”. Finally, in an attempt to decolonize alternative food systems as white spaces, I will share various forms of present-day, small-scale Indigenous food systems such as Wild Rice production by The White Earth Anishinaabe, the ‘Food from the Land’ program in the O-pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation, and various Indigenous farmers markets and community gardens.  

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