Greater than the Sum of the Parts? Unpacking Ethics of Care within a Community Supported Agriculture Scheme

Summary Introduction The aims of this thesis are twofold; firstly, it aims to increase the understanding of the extent to which community gardens enhance social cohesion for those involved; secondly, it aims to gain insight into the importance community gardeners attach to food growing per se, and the extent to which participants perceive community gardens as an alternative to the industrial food system. I define community gardens as a plot of land in an urban area, cultivated either communally or individually by people from the direct neighbourhood or the wider city, or in which urbanites are involved in other ways than gardening, and to which there is a collective element. Over the last years, community gardens have sprung up in several Dutch cities. Although there are various reasons for an increasing interest in community gardens, there are two that I focus on in this thesis in particular. The first is the assumption made that community gardens stimulate social cohesion in inner-city neighbourhoods, to be seen in the light of the 'participatory society'. The second is community gardens' contribution to the availability of locally produced food, in the context of an increased interest in Alternative Food Networks (AFNs). The Dutch government aims to transform the Dutch welfare state into a participatory society in which citizens take more responsibility for their social and physical environment. This way the government not only hopes to limit public spending, but also wishes to increase social bonding and the self-organisational capacity of society. Community gardens fit the rhetoric around the participatory society, as they are examples of organised residents taking responsibility for their living environment. Moreover, the literature suggests that gardens are physical interventions that may decrease isolation by acting as meeting places. However, both the extent to which community gardens enhance social cohesion and under what conditions they may do so are unclear, especially as gardens come in various designs, shapes and sizes. The popularity of community gardens also seems to be related to an overall increasing societal interest in food, and can be discussed in relation to Alternative Food Networks. AFNs are food systems that are different in some way from the mainstream, and are seen as a reaction to consumer concerns about the conventional food system. They are often considered to be dictated by political motivations and injected with a 'deeper morality'. The category 'AFN' is however a heterogeneous category, as is the conventional food system; neither can be easily defined. The degree to which community gardens can be seen as AFNs is therefore unclear. While they do improve the availability of local food and operate outside of the market economy, we do not know how much and how often people eat from their gardens, nor do we know to what extent they are involved in the gardens in order to provide an alternative to the industrial food system. Hence, there is a lack of knowledge about the sense in which community gardens are alternative alternatives. Research questions The overall research question of this thesis is: What is the significance of community gardening in terms of its intention to promote social cohesion as well as its representation as an alternative food system? This broad question is instructed by the following sub-questions: Why do people get involved in community gardens? What are their motivations?How, to what extent, and under which conditions does community gardening promote the development of social relations between participants? How do participants value these social effects? To what extent do the diets of community garden participants originate from the gardens in which they are involved? What is the importance of food in community gardens?What is the importance of growing or getting access to alternative food for participants of community gardens? Methodology An important theoretical lens in this research is the theory of practice. Practices are defined as concrete human activity and include things, bodily doings and sayings. By performing practices people not only draw upon but also feed into structure. Routinisation – of practices, but also of daily life – therefore plays a central role in practice theory. Practice theory allows for an emphasis on practical reality as well as a study of motivations. This focus on how people manage everyday life, and how gardening fits within that, makes it particularly useful for this thesis. I define social cohesion as the way in which people in a society feel and are connected to each other (De Kam and Needham 2003) and operationalised it by focusing on 'social contacts, social networks, and social capital', one of the elements into which social cohesion is often broken up. This element was operationalised as 1) contacts (the width of social cohesion) and 2) mutual help (the depth of social cohesion). This research has a case study design; I studied four Dutch community gardens over a two-year period of time, and later supplemented these with an additional three cases. As practices consist of both doings and sayings, analysis must be concerned with both practical activity and its representation. I used participant observations to study practical activities, and interviews, questionnaires and document study to examine the representation of these activities. Findings Chapters 3 to 7 form the main part of this thesis. They are papers/book chapters that have been submitted to or are published by scientific journals or books. All of them are based on the field work. In chapter 3 we compare two of the case studies and determine to what extent they can be seen as 'alternative'. We argue that although reflexive motivations are present, most participants are unwilling to frame their involvement as political, and mundane motivations play an important role in people's involvement as well. By using the concept of 'food provisioning practices' we show that participants of community gardens are often required to be actively involved in the production of their food. This means that participants are both producers and consumers: the gardens show a 'sliding scale of producership'. This chapter also shows that political statements are not a perfect predictor of actual involvement in community gardening. This finding was one of the main reasons for starting to use the theory of practice, which is the main topic of the next chapter. In chapter 4 we compare one of my case studies with an urban food growing initiative in New York City. By comparing the internal dynamics of these two cases and their relations with other social practices, we investigate whether different urban food growing initiatives can be seen as variations of one single practice. We also study the question of whether the practice can be seen as emerging. In particular, we take the elements of meaning, competences and material (Shove et al. 2012) into account. We found both similarities and differences between the two cases, with the main difference relating to the meanings practitioners attach to the practice. We conclude, therefore, that it is not fully convincing to see these cases as examples of the same social practice. We also argue that urban food growing may be considered an emerging practice, because it combines various practices, both new and established, under one single heading. In chapter 5 we use the theory of practice to explore how urban food growing is interwoven with everyday life. We compare four community gardens - two allotments and two cases which we define as AFNs. We found that participants of the allotments are involved in the practice of gardening, while members of the AFNs are involved in the practice of shopping. The gardening practice requires structural engagement, turning it into a routine. The produce is a result of that routine and is easily integrated into daily meals. As AFNs are associated with the practice of shopping, they remain in competition with more convenient food acquisition venues. Eating from these gardens is therefore less easily integrated in daily life; every visit to the garden requires a conscious decision. Hence, whether members are primarily involved in shopping or in growing has an impact on the degree to which they eat urban-grown food. This shows that motivations are embedded in the context and routine of everyday life, and 'only go so far'. Chapter 6 concerns the organisational differences between the seven case studies in this thesis and the extent to which these influence the enhancement of social cohesion. We study people's motivations for being involved in the gardens and compare these with the three main organisational differences. This comparison reveals that the gardens can be divided into place-based and interest-based gardens. Place-based gardens are those in which people participate for social reasons – aiming to create social bonds in the neighbourhood. Interest-based gardens are those in which people participate because they enjoy growing vegetables. Nevertheless, all of these gardens contribute to the development of social cohesion. Moreover, while participants who are motivated by the social aspects of gardening show a higher level of appreciation for them, these social aspects also bring added value for those participants who are motivated primarily by growing vegetables. In chapter 7 we present a garden that exemplifies that gardens may encompass not only one, but indeed several communities, and that rapprochement and separation take place simultaneously. While this garden is an important meeting place, thereby contributing to social cohesion, it harbours two distinct communities. These communities assign others to categories ('us' and 'them') on the basis of place of residence, thereby strengthening their own social identities. Ownership over the garden is both an outcome and a tool in that struggle. We define the relationship between these two communities as instrumental-rational – referring to roles rather than individuals - which explains why they do not form a larger unity. Nevertheless, the two communities show the potential to develop into a larger imagined garden-community. Conclusions This thesis shows that the different organisational set-ups of community gardens reflect gardeners' different motivations for being involved in these gardens. The gardens studied in this thesis can be defined as either place-based or interest-based; gardens in the first category are focused on the social benefits of gardening, whereas gardens in the second category are focused on gardening and vegetables. Nevertheless, social effects occur in both types of gardens; in all of the gardens studied, participants meet and get to know others and value these contacts. Based on this finding, I conclude that community gardens do indeed enhance social cohesion. Place-based community gardens specifically have the potential to become important meeting places; they offer the opportunity to work communally towards a common goal, and once established, can develop into neighbourhood spaces to be used for various other shared activities. Most interest-based gardens lack opportunities to develop the social contacts that originated at the garden beyond the borders of the garden. These gardens are often maintained by people who do not live close to the garden or to each other, and those who garden are generally less motivated by social motivations per se. Important to note is that community gardens do not necessarily foster a more inclusive society; they often attract people with relatively similar socio-economic backgrounds and may support not one, but several communities. Most participants from place-based gardens eat from their gardens only occasionally; others never do so. This type of community garden can therefore hardly be seen as a reaction to the industrialised food system, let alone an attempt to create an alternative food system. Nevertheless, certain aspects of these gardens are in line with the alternative rhetoric. By contrast, most gardeners at interest-based gardens eat a substantial amount of food from their gardens, and to some of them the choice to consume this locally-grown food relates to a lifestyle in which environmental considerations play a role. However, this reflexivity is not expressed in political terms and participants do not see themselves as part of a food movement. Participants who buy rather than grow produce showed the greatest tendency to explain their involvement in political terms, but many of them have difficulty including the produce in their diets on a regular basis. I therefore conclude that community gardens cannot be seen as conscious, 'alternative' alternatives to the industrial food system. Nonetheless, the role of food in these gardens is essential, as it is what brings participants together – either because they enjoy gardening or because the activities which are organised there centre around food. Theoretical contributions In this thesis I used and aimed to contribute to the theory of practice. Using participant observations to study what people do in reality was particularly useful. It turned research into an embodied activity, enabling me to truly 'live the practice', and therefore to understand it from the inside. Deconstructing the practice of food provisioning into activities such as buying, growing and cooking was helpful in gaining an understanding of how people manage everyday life, and how food acquisitioning fits into their everyday rhythms. It sheds light on how and to what extent people experience the practice of community gardening as a food acquisitioning practice, and to what degree they relate it to other elements of food provisioning such as cooking and eating. The focus on the separate elements of food provisioning practices helped me realise that acquiring food from community gardens represents a different practice to different people; some are engaged in the practice of growing food, others in the practice of shopping for food. This thesis showed that motivations delineate how the practice 'works out in practice'; the way in which a practice such as community gardening is given shape attracts people with certain motivations, who, by reproducing that practice, increase the attractiveness of the practice for others with similar motivations. This implies that while community gardening appears to be one practice, it should in fact be interpreted as several distinct practices, such as the practice of food growing or the practice of social gathering. Motivations therefore influence a garden's benefits and outcomes. This thesis thus highlights that motivations should not be overlooked when studying practices. Apprehending the motivations of community gardeners is also an important contribution to the literature around AFNs, since it helps us to understand the extent to which urban food production is truly alternative. By studying motivations, this thesis reveals that AFNs do not necessarily represent a deeper morality, or that not all food growing initiatives in the city can be defined as alternative. However, participants of community gardens are often both producers and consumers (there is a 'sliding scale of producership'); the gardens are thus largely independent from the conventional food system. Moreover, for participants who buy produce, the meaning of the gardens often goes beyond an economic logic (there is a 'sliding scale of marketness'). Hence, while the gardens studied in this thesis are no alternative alternatives, most of them can be qualified as 'actually existing alternatives' (after Jehlicka and Smith 2011). This thesis showed that even those gardens in which the commodification of food is being challenged do not necessarily represent a deeper morality, which is contrary to what is argued by Watts et al. (2005). This implies that understanding whether or not initiatives resist incorporation into the food system is insufficient to be able to determine whether or not they can be defined as alternative food networks. However, determining whether or not deeper moral reflection is present is not a satisfactory way of defining food networks as alternative either, as this neglects the fact that motivations do not always overlap with practical reality. This suggests that establishing whether a food network can be regarded as alternative requires studying both motivations and practical reality. The thesis also raises the question to what extent the label AFN is still useful. Since it is unclear what 'alternative' means exactly, it is also unclear whether a given initiative can be considered alternative. Moreover, the world of food seems too complex to be represented by a dichotomy between alternative and conventional food systems; the gardens presented in this thesis are diverse and carry characteristics of both systems. I therefore suggest considering replacing the term AFN with that of civic food networks, as Renting et al. (2012) advocate.

This book is neither simple nor easy to read. It is an attempt to systematize and update the work on alternative/local food networks that has engaged the authors for many years and that has produced many articles, published mainly in Sociologia Ruralis and the Journal of Rural Studies. It is a complex read, because it puts together different contexts (USA and the ‘UK and Western Europe’) and it draws from many different social theoretical traditions. But it is worth the effort, since it engages the reader in a vast and deep, reflexive analysis of alternative food networks (AFNs). The authors’ interest focuses on the big question that has animated the debate on alternative food movements during the past two decades: are AFNs a failed project, due to the influence of neo-liberalism, or are they an expression of prefigurative politics, alternative, not because they are oppositional, but because they are an expression of food production and consumption practices that are incompatible with the dominant organization of the food system (‘resistance of the third kind’, in the words of Van der Ploeg, 2007)? The authors take a critical perspective and try ‘to strike a balance... between critique and constructive analysis of the problems facing those working to change the place of food in our lives, practices, politics’ (p. 249). A critical perspective means rejecting the interpretation of AFNs as failed projects, but also the ‘normative portrayals of the local as places with conflict-free, communitarian values of reciprocity and fairness’ (p. 8). They propose the concept of ‘reflexive localism’, as the foundation of a democratic local food politics. The first part of the book – which is divided into four parts – is the theoretical foundation of a ‘reflexive localism’ the other three parts are an application of the concept to alternative food movements in the ‘UK and Western Europe’1 (Part 2), in the USA (Part 3) and to the ‘cultural material politics of fair trade’ (Part 4). My comments concentrate mainly on two points: first, the complexity of the theoretical construction; second, the application of the concept of reflexive localism to AFNs and to fair trade networks.

Concerns about the unsustainability of the conventional food system have promoted interest in alternative food networks (AFNs), which are typically conceptualized through their differences from conventional food networks. Real-life AFNs, however, tend to show some similarities to the conventional food system. This hybridity has caused some criticism, but also, increasingly, calls for a more open examination of AFNs. Indeed, AFNs can be seen as relational to and shaped by the prevailing food system, for example the expectations the conventional system has promoted among consumers. In this paper, through a multiple case study of nine alternative food retailers, we examine the negotiation of acceptable practice in AFNs and the challenges encountered in trying to do things alternatively. We employ convention theory, which encourages a view of action as socially negotiated and situational, and acknowledges plural legitimate notions of worth in guiding and justifying actions. Our findings show a plurality of ideals in the domain of AFNs and a complex navigation between the retailers’ own expressed ideals and considerations and perceived consumer expectations. The retailers’ justification of actions highlights several areas of tension in AFN practice, helping also to understand the challenges in adopting sustainable practices. While responding to consumer expectations sometimes involved adopting more conventional practices, the retailers also challenged consumers on certain issues. Our findings also show how even market-oriented AFNs may take radically alternative courses of action. The study supports the broader argument for examining all food networks in an open way, focusing on actual sustainability outcomes.

Born out of resistance to a faceless and essentially placeless food system, the alternative food movement has acquired a global reach. Now, in the early twenty-first century, the practice and politics of local food encompass everything from backyard (and front-yard) gardens, to national appellations, to calls for indigenous sovereignty. Organics are standardized, mass produced, and traded nationally and internationally. Fair trade products are familiar grocery store fare, their value represented by logos and their processes often dominated by multinationals. There are those who see these changes as evidence of the movement’s success. What was once an alternative vision has now moved into the mainstream, into popular (and global) awareness, bringing with it many enlightened values – care, ecology, sustainability, health, equity. There are others who see these changes as yet another demonstration of the power of market (or corporate) capitalism, its ability to commodify anything, underwrite neo-liberal policies, and reinforce the structures that gave rise to the original resistance. Frequently, opposing arguments (among practitioners, activists and academics) are as polarized and impassioned as the initial rhetoric that advocated ‘a turn toward the local’ and away from an industrial food system. But, there are problems with either/or thinking, with seeing the world only in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Not the least of these is the question of who gets to say – act on and enforce – what is and isn’t possible; who gets to decide what does or doesn’t matter. Stated a bit differently, such essentialist thinking can lead to a loss of critical insight into the behavioural and thought processes that play out in lived contexts as well as across the many levels of what hopefully will become a generative and socially just food system. Given the severity of the problems we face on this once blue-green planet and the essential nature of food to our survival, we really need to stop cleaving to simplistic images and attacking convenient straw men. We need to expand our thinking and our tool chest in ways that permit, no, I really mean continually enable, public discourse and engaged citizenship. We also need to learn how to listen. Alternative Food Networks: Knowledge, Practice and Politics is a bold step in this direction. From the outset, authors Goodman, DuPuis and Goodman explain that they want to steer a course between arguments of food system conventionalization and accounts celebrating the tenacity and virtuosity of the alternative vision. As they put it:

Inthispaper,wedeveloptheburgeoningresearchagendaonalternativefood networks in Europe. Through the concept of ‘embeddedness’, we argue for a muchmorenuancedandcomplexunderstandingoftherelationshipsbetween conventional and alternative food chains—and, by extension, of their implications for rural development. Rather than viewing alternative and conventionalfoodnetworksasseparatespheres,weseethemashighlycompetitive and as relational to one another and argue for the need to examine the links morecritically.Inparticular,wehighlighttheneedtoexplorethecompetitive relationships that alternative food networks have with the conventional sector to expose power imbalances and the effect these may have on wider rural development processes.

Alternative food systems and networks, which have emerged around the world, are often fragmentary, reduced in size and frequently unfold in parallel, hardly linked to each other. Agroecology faces the challenge of scaling up these initiatives to gain size and a significant impact on food production and consumption. Within the agroecological movement, however, diverse conceptions exist of what a sustainable food system should be. It is thus necessary to reach an extensive consensus, from the perspective of agroecology, on the principles guiding the construction of such a system. This paper discusses the principles that would best steer the building of Agroecology-based Local Agri-food Systems (ALAS). To this end, a critical review of the scientific literature on alternative food networks and systems was performed. In so doing, we highlighted the aspects that one could consider as purely agroecological in nature and sought to bring them together to form a coherent proposal. Consequently, the present paper systematizes the main contributions of literature on alternative food networks and systems, taking into account the characteristics of sustainability from an agroecology viewpoint, and identifies the issues requiring further development. Several principles are proposed to define local food systems, based on the four dimensions of sustainability: environmental health, economic viability, social equity and the right to decide what, how and for whom food is produced.

Progressing knowledge in alternative and local food networks: Critical reflections and a research agenda

This article examines the diversity of food networks that fit within the alternative food system of the United States. While farmers' markets, community supported agriculture schemes, and corporate organic food markets all fit within the alternative food system, they differ greatly in the conventions and beliefs that they represent. The alternative food system has divided into two movements: corporate, weak alternative food networks; and local, strong alternative food networks. The weak corporate version focuses on protecting the environment; however, it neglects issues concerning labor standards, animal welfare, rural communities, small-scale farmers, and human health. Local, strong alternative food networks not only assure environmental protection, but they also address the issues that weak alternatives neglect. Using three case studies from the Washington, D.C. metro area, the author explains that strong alternative food networks are better suited to create social and political change because they challenge the foundations of the conventional food system: standardized and generic products, price-based competition, consolidated power, and global scale. To affect true social and political change in the United States, the author recommends supporting strong alternative food networks by creating the requisite cultural and political space for them to succeed.

It is something of an accepted truth that alternative food networks (AFNs) are bastions of the affluent middle and upper classes. No one else, it is assumed, could afford the premium prices routinely attached to organic, fair trade and other ethically produced foodstuffs. In Alternative Food Networks: Knowledge, Practice and Politics, David Goodman, Melanie DuPuis and Michael Goodman ask us to think beyond income-based inequality and to consider how a range of other social cleavages may be reflected in and shape AFNs. They argue that race, in particular, has been inadequately problematized both by alternative food movements and by the scholars that study them. Certainly, many have argued that the social standards embedded within various eco-certifications are too weak, allowing, for example, the exploitation of migrant labour on organic farms in the US (e.g. Allen, 2008). But few have looked seriously or critically at the racial composition or dynamics of AFNs. To put it rather crudely, AFNs are not simply the domain of the affluent middle classes, the authors argue, they are the domain of the privileged white middle classes.

The increasing diversity of food networks and initiatives has given rise to a variety of analyses and approaches among which the literature on “Alternative Food Networks” (AFN) and the “quality turn” stand out for the role of European and more specifically French and Italian contributions and the richness of the debates between authors from different horizons. These debates focus especially on the transformative power of alternative and/or quality food networks at the scale of larger agrifood systems and the risks of territorial and social inequity that they may embody, thus raising social justice issues. However, in the AFN literature, the central focus on specific networks (mostly emanating from the civil society) often leads to overlook the effects of possible interactions between different networks and stakeholders, while in the “quality” literature, the central focus on specialty products often leads to a lack of consideration of entire food diets and agrifood systems as well as social justice issues. Based on a focused critical review of these literature, we thus argue for an intertwined approach that aims at assessing food systems as territorial constructions. In this purpose, our approach defines the research object by starting from a hypothesis of territorial assemblage instead of from specific initiatives considered in isolation. This allows taking into account various initiatives, different ambitions and their combined effects in facilitating – or not – just sustainable transitions. We do not base our argument on an optimistic vision of the potentials of hybridisations and combinations, but rather on a critical perspective focused on the effects of the alternative/conventional confrontations (and controversies) in terms of “re-differentiation” processes. Based on two case studies in Southern France and Northern Italy, we demonstrate how this approach can be applied and contribute to wider debates over the key questions related to the AFNs’ transformative power and social justice.

This article explores the potential of alternative food networks (AFNs) for food security and resili­ence as COVID-19 has raised challenges to the global food supply chain. Pandemic-induced dis­ruptions to conventional food production, distri­bution, and consumption networks have revealed problems with the global food system and have drawn attention to the re-localization and regional­ization of food systems. Lockdown and mobility restrictions have also disrupted the availability, quality, and stability of food. We evaluate how AFNs have responded to these challenges in a non-western context through a case-study ap­proach informed by participant observation and semistructured interviews. After examining the multiple factors that have been critical to the emergence and expansion of AFNs in Turkey since the mid-2000s, we argue that these food distribu­tion networks have aimed to address food security, environmental sustainability, and farmer liveli­hoods in complementary ways. We provide a time­line of state-led measures in response to COVID-19 in Turkey as we consider their impacts on food distribution systems and access in urban areas. We then compare two AFNs: a food community work­ing within a participatory guarantee system, and a consumer cooperative that connects producers and consumers in urban areas. Although the two AFNs faced initial challenges due to disruptions in deliv­ery services and lockdowns, they have been able to continue their services and address increasing de­mand. They also provided special solidarity pack­ages for those adversely affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19. By building on the existing networks and relationships of trust between con­sumers and producers, and the capacity and will­ingness of producers to adapt to the new regulatory environment, the two AFNs have been able to continue their activities and start new initiatives.

Labor conditions and rights are a key justice issue in agri-food systems, particularly in global, capitalized and industrialized food supply chains. While alternative food networks have emerged to produce and distribute food outside these logics, their ability to provide more equitable work conditions remains widely debated. We examine equity issues in the division of labor in food exchange networks in the horticultural sector of Senegal from the perspective of contributive justice. Contributive justice considers more broadly how different qualities of work are distributed and how work is perceived by the workers themselves. We performed 71 interviews of workers participating in three food exchange networks: (1) the conventional horticultural supply chain from the Niayes production area to Dakar, (2) an NGO-supported organic food network also supplying goods from Niayes to Dakar and (3) a community-supported agriculture scheme in a peri-urban coastal area. We investigated how functions and tasks are distributed along gender, ethnicity, place of origin and education characteristics of workers and how they qualify their tasks in terms of satisfaction and tediousness. We found a sharp labor division along gender, education and ethnic characteristics in the conventional network and a less sharp one in the two alternative networks. However, worker participants in alternative networks tend to belong to local elites and rarely include more disadvantaged people; they also tend to be less specialized and perform several functions, but do not necessarily express better work satisfaction. Workers who perform highly tedious tasks in the conventional network show rather surprising high work satisfaction. Based on these findings, we discuss the interplays between external and situated perceptions of work and the organization of food supply chains. This allows to critically examine the transformative potential of alternative food networks in the context of a lower-middle income country such as Senegal.

With the growing interest in short food chains from farmers, consumers, private and public institutions around the world, it proves that it is necessary to look for alternative food systems which are able to provide some of the "requirements" that the traditional short food chain does not currently meet. Alternative food networks (AFN) are local food systems and networks with short supply chains replacing global food systems. They are often located at the interface between the countryside and the city and, as a result of the high effort towards innovative network organization, they have different forms. As the demand for locally sourced, sustainable food continues to grow, alternative food networks have emerged as a promising solution to connect small producers with urban consumers. The aim of the case study is to find out the organizational models of alternative food networks in Europe and to identify the specific parameters of these networks using case studies. Another goal of the study is to identify and describe food initiatives on the territory of the Slovak Republic based on available sources. To achieve these goals, it was necessary to conduct a systematic review of the literature on this topic. Content analysis has the task of mapping alternative food chains and proving that these chains can be a suitable way for short food chains. The findings show that alternative food networks have the potential to support a food system that is more sustainable and equitable. However, the success of these networks depends on how well they can work at the urban-rural interface.

Alternative food networks (AFNs) have been viewed as being more deeply embedded in the fabric of places and the social relations of their food systems than conventional food networks, and have been regarded as ‘spaces of hope’ for addressing sustainability challenges associated with global food systems. This paper argues that embeddedness, however, is contingent and shifting rather than an intrinsic quality, and is shaped by the cultures of production, trade, and consumption in particular places. This paper evaluates challenges that emerging AFNs in Guangzhou, China, are confronting relating to their embeddedness in place. The paper is underpinned by research involving interviews and focus groups with key food system actors and stakeholders in Guangzhou, including government officials, organic farmers, retailers, and non-governmental organizations. It demonstrates that AFNs in Guangzhou achieve only ‘fragmentary embeddedness’ in local cultures and systems of production, retail, and consumption. Despite strong social relationships established by a few successful farms and their loyal consumer groups, AFNs more broadly have struggled to embed themselves in the social and cultural fabric of the city and its commercial foodscapes. In terms of territorial embeddedness, the association of AFNs with western values, which do not always translate into Guangzhou's production and retail systems, can limit their embeddedness and scaling up in this context. The split between ‘new’ farmers (i.e., educated and urban-rooted producers ‘returning to the land’) and common farmers (i.e., local peasants) further exacerbates the difficulty of integrating AFNs in rural communities. Regarding social embeddedness, AFNs struggle to meet local consumer preferences regarding food appearances, quality, and taste, and therefore consumer trust in them is limited. In terms of institutional embeddedness, AFNs lack government policy support, despite the alignment of their missions with national strategies. More efforts are needed to deepen the embeddedness of AFNs in Guangzhou's food system and cultures if they are to respond effectively to China's food crisis and wider sustainability issues.

ABSTRACTThere is increased attention to alternative food efforts as individuals and groups seek to build stronger local food infrastructures to increase accessibility, transparency, and fairness with how food is grown, produced, and distributed. In considering individuals and families contending with food injustices and insecurities; concerns and questions have surfaced about what it means to privilege the leadership and participation of these communities in alternative food efforts. While there are no linear answers to these questions, this paper explores how one statewide food network in the United States seeks to involve youth contending with the juvenile justice system in a job readiness programme, Youth Kitchen, that interfaces the youth with farmers, chef educators, community organisations, and farmers markets. This paper contends that integrating alternative food and juvenile justice work is a complex terrain that both advances social justice and reproduces existing power asymmetries within alternative food networks. The inclusion of accounts from multiple stakeholders in the local food and juvenile justice system generates a multilayered view that moves away from an either sustainability or social justice rubric to a more process-oriented lens that reveals the strategic dilemmas that alternative food networks encounter. On the one hand, the social landscape of this programme promotes an ethic of care and shared ownership between the staff and participating youth. At the same time, akin to many alternative food networks, neoliberal interests bump against this ethic of care and white privilege seeps into staffing patterns and everyday programmes in ways that reproduce the status quo.