‘Rescaling’ alternative food systems: from food security to food sovereignty

Navé Wald () and Douglas Hill ()

Agriculture and Human Values, 2016, vol. 33, issue 1, 203-213

Abstract: In this paper, we critically interrogate the benefits of an interdisciplinary and theoretically diverse dialogue between ‘local food’ and ‘alternative food networks’ (AFNs) and outline how this dialogue might be enriched by a closer engagement with discourses of food sovereignty and the politics of scale. In arguing for a shift towards a greater emphasis on food sovereignty, we contend that contemporary discourses of food security are inadequate for the ongoing task of ensuring a just and sustainable economy of food. Further, rather than treating the local and the global as ontologically given categories around which to contest the politics of food, it is our contention that recognising the socio-spatial aspects of the politics of scale has the potential to reinvigorate discourses of food security, food sovereignty and AFNs. Understanding scale as both fixed to a degree as well as contingent and dynamic has implications for an understanding of the role of food systems, for how the rescaled state privileges certain food systems and the possibilities for resistance through ‘jumping scale’ and food utopias. All of these aspects are significant if we are to fully comprehend and contest the challenges of envisioning and enacting real utopias of food sovereignty. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Keywords: Alternative food networks; Food security; Food sovereignty; Scale; Food utopia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10460-015-9623-x

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