Abstract
This article reviews the concept of provenance from both contemporary and traditional aspects. The incorporation of indigenous meanings and conceptualizations of belonging into provenance are explored. First, we consider how the gradual transformation of marketplaces into market and consumer activism catalyzed the need for provenance. Guided by this, we discuss the meaning of provenance from an indigenous and non-indigenous rationale. Driven by the need for a qualitative understanding of food, the scholarship has utilized different epistemologies to demonstrate how authentic connections are cultivated and protected by animistic approaches. As a tool to mobilize place, we suggest that provenance should be embedded in the immediate local context. Historic place-based indigenous knowledge systems, values, and lifeways should be seen as a model for new projects. This review offers a comprehensive collection of research material with emphasis on a variety of fields including anthropology, economic geography, sociology, and biology, which clarifies the meaning of provenance in alternative food systems. It questions the current practices of spatial confinement by stakeholders and governments that are currently applied to the concepts of provenance in foods, and instead proposes a holistic approach to understand both indigenous and non-indigenous ideologies but with an emphasis on Maori culture and its perspectives.
Highlights
There is a growing interest in food provenance amongst consumers for a variety of reasons, including self, economic, environmental, social and cultural well-being
The concept of provenance is much broader than merely the geographic domain of place, and confining it into one dimension alone is nothing more than pandering to the belief system of neoclassical economists. This said, provenance can be explained without reference to the values, based on objective biological facts, led by a formalist economy, but this would create perturbations among producers, mediators, consumers and would be eventually lost to capitalism and commercialization
The compromise between the domestic and marketing principles was suggested as a working mechanism for alternative food producers, where actors involved are looking for a common good (Kirwan 2006), which guides the narratives of quality used by these producers, and leads to the increased perception of product authenticity (Giorda 2018)
Summary
There is a growing interest in food provenance amongst consumers for a variety of reasons, including self, economic, environmental, social and cultural well-being. Providing consumer information about the origin of food helps consumers reduce their anxiety about safety, quality, authenticity, ethics, and sustainability through perceptions and knowledge about the spatial, social and cultural characteristics of that provenance (from field notes 2021). The holistic significance that consumers attach to food provenance can impact the economic development of local or corporate production companies, farming systems, transport systems, social relations, and has social welfare consequences on local producers, farmer-owners, and their workers (Soon Jan and Wallace Carol 2018). The concept of provenance can be considered and delivered in isolation, but the consideration of other beyond spatial spheres would provide a more qualitative understanding of food systems, their involved stakeholders, and perhaps the human–nature relationship This relational understanding can be authentically realized and cultivated through indigenous animist approaches. A Māori perspective on production and entrepreneurship systems will be presented as an applied case of indigenous provenance concepts on the understanding of food systems
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