Social Food Movements

Social Food Movements

Theoretical approaches to understand

constituencies & claims

JOSE LUIS VIVERO POL University of LouvainPhD Research Fellow in Food Governance

“Social Food Movements” Master in Food, Law & Finance International University College, Turin, Italy (March, 2017)

What is a social food movement?

Peasants from Global SouthPowerless but big constituency

Farmers from Global NorthEmpowered by small share (<5%)

Urban eatersBillions, not loose constituency

Civic Collective Actions for FoodGrowing in nichesNon-political force?

Corporations with their own NGOs

Transition Theory: Innovative Social Movements (Niches VS Regimes)

Multi-level Perspective on socio-technological transitions Geels (2002)

Lock-in MechanismsHard to change

Niche innovations: learning, networking, appealing vision, scaling up

Internal Coherence Basics taken for granted, media & science building consent

Accepted Paradigms (social constructs), Utopia is discarded

Hegemonic Discourse (based on values, ideology, science) Manufacture of ConsentPolicies & Laws follow discourse

Alternative Discourses (values, praxis, discontent) Challenging the system: adoption, co-option, replacement

Typologies by structure

• Legally-formed CSO (NGOs, Federation)• Self-regulated Civic Actions (Food Buying

Groups, Guerrila Gardening)• Networks of Peers (Wikipedia)

• Customary or Contemporary

• Holt-Gimenez & Shattuck (2011)• Geels et al. (2015)• Williams (1977)• Wright (2006)• McClintock (2014)

Vivero-Pol, J.L. Food as Commons or Commodity? Exploring the Links between Normative Valuations and Agency in Food Transition. Sustainability 2017, 9, 442.

Typologies by Goal/Purpose

REFORMISTSIncremental changes, no questioning

balance of power

Neoliberal Corporative reproducing neoliberal regime,

market is best allocation mechanism, property & profits R

foundational pillars

Gradual Reformers: fault-lines recognized, mitigate social

& environmental externalities

TRANSFORMATIVEQuestioning balance of power,

pluralistic (strength & weakness)

Alter-hegemonic (interstitital)Changing by doing: pragmatic

Remains within current regime and dominant market narrative

Counter-hegemonic (Ruptural)Normative, confrontational

Structural reforms, questioning foundations of current inequalities,

man-made inequalities

Neoliberal Reformists

• Daily life practices, behaviour, programmes BUT maintains status quo

• Sovereign consumer shall eat less ultra-processed food and meat, but they keep selling those products (influencing through publicity)

• Hunger and obesity have no man-made drivers, no guilty corporations. They just happen

Good Analysis

No responsibilities

No transformative measures

World Economic Forum

Gradual Reformers

• Business as usual is not an option. They recognize fault-lines of industrial food system

• But changes R neither radical nor affecting core elements of that very system

• Food waste, produce more with less resources, increase safety nets, nourish better with market products

3 PARADOXES (NO responsible actors): food waste, malnutrition-obesity, distortion of resource use

22

GMO Labelling in USA

Food Banks: Humanitarian Charity

Stuart (2009) BCFN (2016) Barber (2016)

Alter-hegemonic Transformative

• Incremental erosion of structures through different praxis. More doing than protesting.

• Not so demanding: each one at his pace, no political engagement required, keeping our livelihoods but changing some habits

• Interstices (Food Policy Councils) and edges (Urban gardens in abandoned lots)

• Remain within capitalistic narratives. Better markets, more governmental control

Counter-hegemonic Transformative

• Clash of narratives seeking hegemony in the world of ideas. First ideas, then policies & legal frameworks

• Social struggles, do not refuse conflict bcs it facilitates disjunctures & changes

• Complete over haul of status quo, utopian, moral-based, giving voice to neglected groups

• Extremely political. Highly Normative (strength & weakness). Demanding compromise

• Food producers, rural peasants, indigenous groups

Pollan (2011)Patel (2013) Akram-Lodhi (2013) Roberts (2013)

Which one is more relevant to you?

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete

R Buckminster Fuller, architect

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones John Maynard Keynes

Our basic function was to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the political impossible becomes the politically inevitable”

Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom

An old error is always more popular than a new truth German Proverb

It is from the champions of the impossible rather than the slaves of the possible that evolution draws its creative force

Barbara Wootton, British Sociologist

Geels, F. W., A. McMeekin, J. Mylan & D. Southerton (2015). A critical appraisal of Sustainable Consumption and Production research: The reformist, revolutionary and reconfiguration positions. Global Environmental Change 34: 1–12.Geels, F.W. & J. Schot (2007). Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways. Research Policy 36: 399-417. Holt-Giménez, E. & A. Shattuck (2011). Food crises, food regimes and food movements: rumblings of reform or tides of transformation? Journal of Peasant Studies 38(1): 109-144McClintock, N. (2014). Radical, reformist, and garden-variety neoliberal: coming to terms with urban agriculture's contradictions. Local Environment 19(2): 147-171Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and Literature. Oxford University Press: OxfordWright, E. O. (2006) Compass Points. Towards a Socialist Alternative. New Left Review 41: 93–124.

References