Sites, stakes, and scales: radical relationalism and the shifting nature of food sovereignty mobilization

Abstract

ABSTRACT Food sovereignty movements emerged in the 1990s as a global constellation of struggles against the corporate food regime. Here, we propose a radically relational ‘sites, stakes, and scales' framework for analyzing food sovereignty mobilization, adopting a flat ontology that considers both actual and potential relations. ‘Sites' refer to the actually existing relations between actors engaged in a social struggle; ‘stakes' are dynamic interests that change as relations in the site change, and ‘scales’ capture how potential relations, such as relative social locations, can become actual relations, reconfiguring the site and stakes involved over space and time. We apply the framework to the work of CEPAGRO, a Brazilian agroecology NGO, tracing mobilizations from rural agroecological transitions, to urban agroecology, to building settler-Indigenous relations of solidarity. The ‘sites, stakes and scales’ framework provides a relatively simple set of concepts to explore how social movement mobilizations change over time and across contexts.