TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK TO MAP SUSTAINABILITY TRANSITIONS IN FOOD SYSTEMS

Abstract

Transitions to sustainable food systems are considered necessary to addresssustainability challenges in industrial food systems – but also to achieve food andnutrition security especially in countries of the South. To facilitate such transitions,we need a thorough analytical understanding of change processes in food systems.Different transition frameworks have been suggested in the literature, with theMulti-Level Perspective (MLP) on socio-technical transitions being the mostprominent. While MLP has proven to be a useful heuristic, earlier studies haveidentified weak points (e.g. regarding agency, power, landscape factors andinstitutional innovations) calling for the integration of complementary concepts.This paper proposes a framework for the analysis of sustainability transitions infood systems that integrates elements of the Social Practices Approach, TransitionManagement, Strategic Niche Management and Innovation Systems. The startingpoint of the suggested analytical process is to map emerging sustainable foodsystems along the MLP levels of niche, regime and landscape. To better understandprocesses of creating and developing initiatives in food systems, our mapping relieson Innovation System approaches (e.g. identifying actors and their networks),Transition Management (e.g. niche stabilization and expansion processes) andStrategic Niche Management (e.g. breakthroughs). As wider transitions require areconfiguration of relevant regimes, interactions across levels are of particularinterest. The Social Practices Approach helps to make niche-regime interactionsexplicit. Finally, by looking at the impacts and outcomes of change initiatives, wecan make statements about the type of transition pathway taken – and whether aninitiative has transformative potential or is an incremental adaptation. Further workis needed to refine and test the framework in different contexts.