(Re)establishing the Normal

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 52-59
Author(s):  
Yuson Jung
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Food Practices ◽  
The Status ◽  
Consumption Practices ◽  
Alternative Practices

In the dominant American discourse, alternative practices of consuming ethical foods are often positioned against cheap, highly processed, freely traded, and poor-quality industrially produced foods. This article discusses the different forms and meanings of “alternative” food practices and asks whether consuming organically and locally produced, or fairly traded, foods are the only “alternative” food practices that can claim moral authority and assert one’s ethical adherence. By examining the discourses and practices of everyday food provisioning among resource-constrained consumers in postsocialist Bulgaria and postindustrial Detroit, the article explores the meanings of “good” food, and suggests that “alternatives” do not always translate as foods that are exceptionally moral and pure owing to intrinsic superior values. These comparative case studies complicate a familiar, stereotypical dichotomy between a morally compromised global industrialized food system and an ethical alternative to the status quo that presumes moral purity. The meanings of “good” foods vary in different social and economic contexts, and “alternative” foods therefore can be those that have the power, or promise, to (re)establish a sense of “normal” provisioning opportunities. Recognizing these different forms and meanings of “alternatives” will allow us to envision future food production and consumption practices in more nuanced ways so that an industrialized food system and “alternative” food systems are not cast in mutually exclusive terms.

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.

Collaborative institutional work to generate alternative food systems

Organization ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 314-336
Author(s):  
Sophie Michel
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Institutional Analysis ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Institutional Work ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Global Food System ◽  
Global Food

Recently, there has been a proliferation of alternatives to the global food system. Yet, there is still an ongoing debate on their potential to transform the food system and challenge its globalization. This research introduces institutional analysis to the food system literature in order to comprehend actors’ efforts to scale up alternatives and transform the food system at the local level. Such efforts are explored from an inductive research of the organization called M-Local Food Project, which gathers a range of diverse actors to work on expanding alternative food and transforming the food system in eastern France. Based on this organization’s analysis and its collaborative institutional work, this research highlights how to organize collective agency from the collaboration of multiple actors to co-build an alternative food system and extends the debate on alternative food potential to challenge the dominant global food system. It also provides an emerging model of collaborative institutional work that enriches the institutional analysis on the coalition for institutional changes and offers practical advice on tensions for alternative organizations that cannot be overcome.

scholarly journals Changes in Consumers’ Food Practices during the COVID-19 Lockdown, Implications for Diet Quality and the Food System: A Cross-Continental Comparison

Nutrients ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Blain Murphy ◽  
Tony Benson ◽  
Amanda McCloat ◽  
Elaine Mooney ◽  
Chris Elliott ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Diet Quality ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Food System ◽  
Vegetable Intake ◽  
Saturated Fat ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Food Practices ◽  
The Impact

COVID-19 has led to dramatic societal changes. Differing movement restrictions across countries have affected changes in consumers’ food practices, with a potentially detrimental impact on their health and food systems. To investigate this, this research explored changes in consumers’ food practices during the initial COVID-19 phase and assessed the impact of location on these changes. A sample of 2360 adults from three continents (Island of Ireland (IOI), Great Britain (GB), United States (USA), and New Zealand (NZ)) were recruited for a cross-sectional online survey (May–June 2020). Participants completed questions in relation to their cooking and food practices, diet quality, and COVID-19 food-related practices. Significant changes in consumers’ food practices during the pandemic were seen within and between regions, with fewer cooking practices changes found in the USA. Food practices, which may put added pressure on the food system, such as bulk buying, were seen across all regions. To prevent this, organisational food practices, including planning ahead, should be emphasized. Additionally, while positive cooking-related practices and increases in fruit and vegetable intake were found, an increase in saturated fat intake was also seen. With the additional pressure on individuals’ physical and mental health, the essentiality of maintaining a balanced diet should be promoted.

scholarly journals The Small World of the Alternative Food Network

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2921 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Brinkley
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Local Food ◽  
Small World ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Term Survival ◽  
Food Network ◽  
Robust Network Design ◽  
Alternative Food Network

This research offers the first use of graph theory mathematics in social network analysis to explore relationships built through an alternative food network. The local food system is visualized using geo-social data from 110 farms and 224 markets around Baltimore County, Maryland, with 699 connections between them. Network behavior is explored through policy document review and interviews. The findings revealed a small-world architecture, with system resiliency built-in by diversified marketing practices at central nodes. This robust network design helps to explain the long-term survival of local food systems despite the meteoric rise of global industrial food supply chains. Modern alternative food networks are an example of a movement that seeks to reorient economic power structures in response to a variety of food system-related issues not limited to consumer health but including environmental impacts. Uncovering the underlying network architecture of this sustainability-oriented social movement helps reveal how it weaves systemic change more broadly. The methods used in this study demonstrate how social values, social networks, markets, and governance systems embed to transform both physical landscapes and human bodies. Network actors crafted informal policy reports, which were directly incorporated in state and local official land-use and economic planning documents. Community governance over land-use policy suggests a powerful mechanism for further localizing food systems.

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 Urban Gardening in the Crisis Conjuncture

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-172
Author(s):  
Christopher Maughan ◽  
Christopher Maughan
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Urban Community ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Current Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
Urban Gardening ◽  
Alternative Food Movements

Urban gardening finds itself at a juncture – not only are crises caused and exacerbated by the industrial food system urgently demonstrating the need for more localised, sustainable, and democratically-determined food systems, but alternative food movements are increasingly negotiating crises of their own. Critical Foodscapes was a one-day conference part-funded by Warwick’s Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) and the Food GRP. The conference was put together with the intention of bringing a ‘critical studies’ approach to the emerging research area of urban community food growing; namely, to put critical – but constructive – pressure on some of the assumptions which underlie current theory and practice of the various forms of urban food growing. This article offers some reflections on the conference itself as well as on the prospects for urban gardening more generally.

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.

“Workarounds and Roadblocks”: Risk and Resistance among Food Movement Activists

2020 ◽  
pp. 232949652096562
Author(s):  
Andrew Raridon ◽  
Tamara L. Mix ◽  
Rachel L. Einwohner
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Southern Plains ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Regional Food ◽  
The Social ◽  
Regional Food Systems ◽  
Food Movement

This article examines how activists involved in the food movement use different tactics intended to challenge and subvert the agrifood structures they encounter. We use data from interviews and participant observations with 57 food movement activists operating in less robust alternative food systems throughout the Southern Plains states of Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Our respondents describe how they interpret their regional food systems as deliberately restrictive to the food movement and explain some of the tactical choices they make to maneuver around various constraints they claim hinder their food movement activism. In actively resisting the agricultural status quo, we find that some activists knowingly engage in forms of high-risk activism. We then examine the different framing devices food movement activists use to explain the risks generated by their tactical workarounds. Our findings contribute to the social movements and food system literature by showing how activists interpret and justify the risks generated by their resistance and by emphasizing the contextual nature of tactical choices and risk in social movement activism.

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