Food Sovereignty Movement Research Articles

Food sovereignty at the organizational level: a framework for characterizing the diversity of economic actors

IntroductionThe food sovereignty concept intends to transform agri-food systems toward justice and sustainability. While the food sovereignty movement advocates economic alternatives, the actors engaged in economic activities and striving for food sovereignty as actors of change remain overlooked. Food sovereignty scholarship and the movement gives several exemplars such as peasants, local farms and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), as well as activities such as local food processing. However, recognition of these exemplars as ‘economic actors’ is rarely explicit, nor are their ‘economic activities’ recognized. Simultaneously, large corporations are criticized for their global market dominance, which has led to generalized negative perceptions of economic actors. This lack of differentiation, along with the absence of a clear conceptualization of Economic Actors striving for Food Sovereignty (EAFS), contributes to blind spots. Furthermore, aspects of how EAFS are structured and organized are rarely considered at the organizational level. This has led to limitations, such as in addressing organizational challenges and developing solutions to strengthen and scale EAFS.MethodsThis study aims to conceptualize the diversity of EAFS at the organizational level by identifying patterns in food sovereignty literature. Using thematic analysis within an integrative literature review, we examined 108 publications, including some gray literature.ResultsWe propose a framework with three main themes: (i) conditions that shape EAFS, including diverse motives, which affect their (ii) economic-related characteristics along the agri-food supply chain, and their (iii) organizational-related characteristics, such as forms of property and decision-making. This framework includes 12 sub-themes each encompassing a wide spectrum of differentiation and options for distinction.DiscussionIt reveals that EAFS combines alternative and conventional elements that differ in their configurations. The economic actor perspective helps to identify a broad set of EAFS and perceive their potentiality to foster new alliances and obtain mutual support. Moreover, this study underscores that food sovereignty is also a multifaceted organizational phenomenon, emphasizing the need for organizational insights to stabilize and expand EAFS. The findings can be used by researchers, practitioners, food movements, and related alternative food concepts such as food democracy, to better understand and develop such concepts and its involved actors.

The naturalization of runaway rights: A psychological perspective on how collective demands become subjectively eternal

This paper explores how political demands transform into collective rights through a psychological lens, emphasizing the process of naturalization. Building on Moghaddam et al.'s framework, the authors introduce the idea that collective demands, when reframed as rights, are perceived as inherent, timeless, and essential to group identity. The paper discusses psychological mechanisms like essentialism, autochthony beliefs, and collective continuity, illustrating how groups come to view their demands as fundamental aspects of their existence. The authors explore examples from the Middle East’s ethno-political conflicts and food sovereignty movements, showing how rights claims are naturalized to strengthen group identity and mobilize action. However, the paper also highlights the potential negative consequences of this process, such as deepening social polarization and complicating conflict resolution. By framing rights as eternal, these demands become resistant to negotiation, often intensifying divisions rather than fostering shared human values. The study calls for a more nuanced understanding of rights discourse in contemporary political struggles.

Territory grabbing: agrarian perspectives on the unmaking and reclaiming of Palestinian sovereignty

ABSTRACT Genocide in Gaza has refocused global attention on the question of Palestine, which has received weak treatment in critical agrarian studies – a field uniquely positioned to address it. This contribution offers a lens of territory grabbing to the land grab debate to explain the dismantling of territorial relations. Palestine makes for a powerful case on territory grabbing, where violent Israeli land seizures include both spectacular forms of violence and slower methods of ratcheting up control. This article also explores how Palestinian social movements are engaging with and shaping the food sovereignty movement and its broader convergences to defend territory.

Building solidarities and alliances between degrowth and food sovereignty movements

Degrowth and food sovereignty movements share commitments to social-ecological transformation, democracy and the flourishing of human and non-human life. Encounters between the two movements have been relatively limited, however. This contribution is based on a literature review and a workshop held at the 9th International Degrowth Conference in Zagreb, Croatia, in 2023, where activists, academics, and practitioners collectively explored alliance formation between degrowth and food sovereignty movements. It explores the barriers, gaps, and differences in their political and organizing traditions that may block opportunities for collaboration in different contexts. It also investigates cases of mutual support and collective organizing for transformation already in existence.

Land-based resistance: Enacting Indigenous self-determination and kai sovereignty

This article outlines the role of land relations in the advancement of food sovereignty in the settler colonial context of Aotearoa New Zealand by exploring how land-based anti-colonial resistance movements, including the recent #ProtectIhumātao campaign, can inform food system transformation. First, this article draws on theories of Indigenous food sovereignty, land sovereignty, and critical property theory to argue that in settler colonial contexts, food sovereignty movements must take a critical approach to questions of the state and sovereignty, property relations, and Indigenous struggles for territorial authority and self-determination. Drawing on land-based resistance movements which have included food production as a method of reclamation, this article further proposes a need to understand food sovereignty in the Aotearoa context as firmly grounded in Māori land sovereignty and territorial authority. Finally, this article explores how the struggle to protect Ihumātao ruptured the seemingly settled nature of property relations and state sovereignty, opening space for the articulation of new modes of land governance and new constitutional arrangements more conducive to Māori aspirations for land management and stewardship—including food sovereignty.

Indian Farmers’ Struggle 2020–2021: Contemporary Agrarian Questions and Challenges for a Marxian Political Ecology of Agriculture

This essay draws from critical agrarian studies and the history of farmer’s movements in India in order to shed light on a central problem that the Marxian political ecology of agriculture must confront: how can we develop an ecologically adequate approach to agrarian questions without falling into populism? Or, put differently, how can we reformulate the intuitions of food sovereignty movements through the perspective of the ‘global worker’, thus revealing the ‘unity of the diverse’? It does so by reflecting on debates surrounding the meaning of the agrarian questions in the 21st century, responses to the farmers’ struggle against the so-called new farm laws, and the crisis confronting capitalist world-ecology in the neoliberal era. In particular, the essay thinks through the Bernstein–McMichael debate in the context of the recent farmers’ struggle. It concludes by posing some problems that the Marxian political ecology must confront today.

Improving Indigenous Food Sovereignty through sustainable food production: a narrative review

Indigenous communities in the United States (US) face substantial challenges including health disparities, food insecurity, and cultural disconnection. The Indigenous Food Sovereignty (IFS) movement seeks to address these hurdles through the restoration of traditional foodways in balance with the natural environment. Initiatives aimed at enhancing IFS have proliferated across the US in recent years and are receiving increasing attention from the federal government. While increasing community food production is an important component of IFS, initiatives centered around this goal have received relatively little attention in the literature. A better understanding of current efforts will elucidate the factors underlying their successes and challenges, supporting the development of effective future initiatives. This review characterizes IFS food production initiatives in the US and identifies topics for further research.

Social enterprise, food justice, and food sovereignty: Strange bedfellows or systemic supports?

There is a debate in the literature about whether one can address food system problems with mar­ket-based approaches while seeking food justice or food sovereignty. However, as part of a team of researchers and community leaders, we have found that this debate is less relevant in practice. The concepts are interrelated within real-world food systems. As such, we were motivated to ask, how do social enterprises (SEs) interact with food jus­tice and food sovereignty movements and their visions in order to realize more democratic and equitable local food systems in communities? To answer this question, we conducted a systematic review at the intersection of SE, food sovereignty, and food justice literature. Analyzing nine articles, which included 17 food-related SEs, we found evi­dence of potential interactions between food SEs, food justice, and food sovereignty that are compat­ible (e.g., create employment) and incompatible (e.g., limited ability to address issues like commu­nity employability and green gentrification). The lit­erature includes at least three important character­istics that inform how food-related SEs may interact with food justice and sovereignty, includ­ing employee and ownership demographics, the enterprise business model, and aspects of the food system targeted by the enterprise via market activi­ties. If we consider a systems perspective, we can envision the ways in which the aspects are embed­ded and interdependent in a neoliberal society. SEs, as market-based agents for social change, exist in the same system as justice and sovereignty.

Reimagining the Food System: Kropotkin, Food Sovereignty and OrganicLea

This paper explores the similarities between Kropotkin's vision of a just food system and the food sovereignty movement, with the concrete example of the work of OrganicLea. It will begin with an analysis of the deepening problems of our food system through food insecurity and its negative impact upon the environment. The second part will introduce the idea of food sovereignty and show how it intersects with Kropotkin's work, with it being argued that a just food system is one that recognises central aspects of both; alongside local and collective ownership, the well-being of all, regenerative agriculture and a commitment to wider social and environmental justice. I will then show how such principles are being put into practice through the work and direct action of OrganicLea. This will reveal how Kropotkin's thought is still relevant today and how it can be used to address contemporary concerns such as food insecurity and climate change. The paper will also consider the limitations of Kropotkin, including his time-restricted ideas, and the need for new perspectives such as those found in OrganicLea and the food sovereignty movement.

Nourishing hope: Unraveling the path to justice in the global food system

First paragraph: In an era marked by widespread food insecurity and escalating concerns about climate change, Translating Food Sovereignty: Cultivating Justice in an Age of Transnational Governance by Matthew C. Canfield offers a timely and thought-provoking analysis of the global food system. Canfield explores the emerging food sovereignty movement, which challenges the dominant agro-industrial model and advocates for local and democratic control over food systems. As the reader progresses through the book, it becomes evident that Canfield embodies the essence of both a generalist and a specialist. With a wealth of experiences spanning from “formal” to “informal” and encompassing both legal and practical dimensions, each perspective presented feels remarkably comprehensive and worthy of serious consideration. . . .

Food sovereignty and displacement: gardening for food, mental health, and community connection

ABSTRACT In this paper, we assess factors that underlie the relationship between gardening and improved mental health and food security outcomes among displaced people. Drawing on a mixed method study of refugee gardeners in New York, we argue that a food sovereignty framework better incorporates crucial factors such as cultural appropriateness of food, autonomy over food choices, and promotion of health and community, as compared with a food security analysis. We draw commonalities between Indigenous food sovereignty scholarship and the resettled refugee experience, making connections across conceptual and material divisions in scholarly literature and funding institutions. Our work helps researchers and practitioners understand the impacts of gardening on social and material outcomes for displaced people, and suggests global linkages between dispossessed immigrant and Indigenous peoples’ food sovereignty movements.

Movimentos sociais como agentes de mudança: combatendo as desigualdades alimentares interseccionais, fazendo dos alimentos teias de vida

What does the diversity of social movements and food initiatives tell us about processes of social change? I argue that they offer a productive analytical lens to observe social change because they identify injustices and dynamics of inequalities in the food system and are actively engaged in transforming these. Alternative local food initiatives react to the environmental impacts of globalized food relations; food sovereignty movements highlight class inequalities and power asymmetries in the food system that affect people’s rights to culturally appropriate foodways; food justice movements denounce institutional racism; feminist movements fight persistent gender inequalities from food production to consumption; vegan movements defend animal rights. These are often mapped onto different world regions, with food justice movements more present in the US; food sovereignty movements louder in the Global South; feminist food movements more active in Latin America; and local food movements commonly in the Global North. This article brings together diverse strands of activism and research on social inequalities related to food under the conceptual umbrella of food inequalities. In addition to concept building, it contributes to a sociology of food studies by mapping the geopolitics of knowledge about social change behind the growing mobilization around food issues.

How trust is lost: the Food Systems Summit 2021 and the delegitimation of UN food governance

Social movements see participation formats of international organizations (IOs) with suspicion. They increasingly retreat from cooperation to contest IOs from the outside, because they fear co-optation without real policy impact. However, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) was an exception to this trend because its opening up was seen as long-term dialogue facilitating discussions about the nature of food production, and because it created credible institutional mechanisms that were trusted by activists to give influence to farmers and peasant movements. Therefore, the food sovereignty movement participated within the FAO framework in a remarkably institutionalized way throughout the 2010s. But in 2019, when the United Nations (UN) announced to hold a food systems summit (United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS)), this changed dramatically. The food sovereignty movement, many non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and eventually scientists, decided to boycott the summit, instead organizing an alternative Peoples’ Summit, and withdrawing from long-held institutional roles in the FAO. How can this be explained? This article traces the process from the announcement of the UNFSS to its implementation, stressing how institutional trust was damaged by several decisions in the process that undermined the good faith of activists. As we show in detail, the circumvention of established institutional mechanisms, and the feeling of betrayal on the side of the movement, was decisive for losing institutional trust. Importantly, a mixture of substantive and institutional changes in the context of UNFSS not only undermined the movement’s trust into the integrity and ability of the summit organizers, but thereby also provoked movement efforts to delegitimize UN food governance at large.

The resilience and viability of farmers markets in the United States as an alternative food network: case studies from Michigan during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper examines the resilience of farmers markets in Michigan to the system shock of the global COVID-19 pandemic, questioning how the response fits into market goals of food sovereignty. Adapting to shifting public health recommendations and uncertainty, managers implemented new policies to create a safe shopping experience and expand food access. As consumers directed their shopping to farmers markets looking for safer outdoor shopping, local products, and foods in short supply at grocery stores, market sales skyrocketed with vendors reporting selling more than ever before, but the longevity of this change remains unclear. Our data collected via semi-structured interviews with market managers and vendors, and survey data from customers from 2020 to 21, suggest that despite the widespread impact of COVID-19, there is not sufficient evidence consumers will continue to shop at farmers markets at the rates they did in 2020-21. Furthermore, reasons consumers flocked to farmers markets do not align with market priorities for increased food sovereignty, as increased sales alone are not a sufficient driver for this goal. We question how markets can contribute to broader sustainability goals or serve as alternatives to capitalist and industrial modes of agricultural production, problematizing the role of markets in the food sovereignty movement.

"We Need to Live off the Land": An Exploration and Conceptualization of Community-Based Indigenous Food Sovereignty Experiences and Practices.

Although Indigenous food systems are sustainable in nature, many of these systems have been forcibly altered among Indigenous communities within Canada, as a consequence of colonization. Indigenous Food Sovereignty (IFS) movements work to counteract the dismantling of Indigenous food systems as well as the negative health impacts of environmental dispossession experienced by Indigenous communities. Through community-based participatory research methodologies and the utilization of Etuaptmumk, or two-eyed seeing, this research project explored community perspectives of IFS in Western Canada. Reflexive thematic analysis of qualitative data collected during a sharing circle held with community members identified the influence of Indigenous Knowledge and community support on three main aspects of Indigenous food sovereignty, including (1) environmental concerns, (2) sustainable practices and (3) a strong relationship with the land and waters. Through the sharing of stories and memories related to traditional foods and current sovereignty projects, community members identified concerns for their local ecosystem as well as a desire to preserve its natural state for generations to come. The strengthening of IFS movements is critical to the overall wellbeing of Indigenous communities within Canada. Support is needed for movements that honour relationships with traditional foods and recognize traditional lands and waters as necessary for healing and sustaining the health of Indigenous communities.

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

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.

Food and Inequality

The production, consumption, materiality, and meanings of food are critical topics for sociological research on inequality, although they have not always been recognized as such. This article describes how food is implicated in the production of inequalities across scales and sites. It begins by considering how the global food system is inextricably imbricated with structures of power that create and sustain patterns of inequality, especially in regard to land and labor. It then reviews the literature on food access and food insecurity, not only as determinants of health but as lived experiences shaped by local food environments, intersectional identities, and the social meanings of food. Lastly, it considers how the food justice and food sovereignty movements challenge the inequalities and injustices engendered by the global industrial food system. The conclusions highlight how sociological research on food and inequality is essential to understanding the contexts and consequences of contemporary policy initiatives.

Transformative learning to promote transformative evaluation of food system praxis

Evaluation ideally plays an important role in determining the value and impact of community food system initiatives and movements, providing recommendations for informed decision-making, learning, and programmatic adjustments. Given that community food system work is characterized by critical praxis rooted in deconstructing dominant epistemologies and addressing social and systemic injustices—including discourses and practices from agroecology, food justice, and food sovereignty movements—simple, technical-rationalist approaches to evaluation are inadequate and inappropriate. In parallel with recent developments in critical food system work, the field of evaluation has evolved toward more critical and transformative approaches—including Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation, indigenous evaluation, feminist evaluation, all generally regrouped within the framework of the transformative evaluation paradigm. At the nexus of these trends, to meet the rising demand for critical evaluative thinkers ready to grapple with the complex, dynamic, and contested questions of community food system praxis evaluation, there is a need to equip emerging evaluators with the requisite knowledge of evaluation approaches. To be ready to be critically reflective evaluators, in food system praxis and beyond, the next generation of emerging evaluators must engage fruitfully and in practically wise ways with the complex and contested aspects of critical food system work. Reflecting on the burgeoning literature on evaluator education and evaluation capacity building (ECB), and given the centrality of critical praxis and transformation in both food system work and evaluation alike, we posit that transformative learning theory has a potential role to play in preparing evaluators to meet these challenges. As such, the purpose of this conceptual paper is to highlight the intersections between critical evaluation approaches and critical food system praxis, and propose transformative learning theory as one way to help emerging evaluators prepare to meaningfully grasp and engage with the complexities manifest at this nexus of critical food evaluation praxis.

Local food as resistance: Integrating women’s experiences in the Hungarian food sovereignty movement

The weak civil society thesis in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has been central to scholarly debates interpreting civil society from a Western lens. Touching upon the issue of food sovereignty, we contest this conceptualisation by revealing the wider networks and strength of food-related local practices in Hungary after the 1990s. In doing so, we rely on a qualitative study conducted between 2020-2021, based on 25 semi-structured ‘oral herstory’ interviews with women who have been actively dealing with food sovereignty issues. With the above study, we had three main objectives. First, to counter the widespread (mis)perception of local food production as a mere necessity in CEE. Second, we highlight the importance of rural local food production, to counter the understanding of home gardening as a practice without resistance. Thirdly, we wish to voice the experiences of women in the movement in their larger structural and historical settings. Our findings concentrate on two key areas: the movement's experience with recurrent crises and political-economic conditions from the 1990s onwards, and the subjective assessment of shifting hierarchical dynamics within the movement milieu. The paper's main goal is to illuminate women's experiences and positionality within the global food system from a Hungarian viewpoint.

The Slow Food Movement and the Terra-Madre project: food sovereignty and translocal assemblages

ABSTRACT Since 2004 the SF Movement has developed a global community of food producers and activists called Terra-Madre. Every two years representatives of the community meet in Turin for five days of workshops and conferences. Due to Covid-19 crisis SF has radically changed the nature of the meeting, presenting a six-month calendar of digital and physical events around the world. The paper examines the exchange occurring between communities as a form of translocal activism and considers to what extent SF can be defined as a movement for food sovereignty. It draws on digital data collection on the online activities and research with participants involving semi-structured interviews and observation notes. The paper reflects on the experience of digital fieldwork and how the new format of Terra-Madre provides insights into SF as a translocal movement characterized by conflicts, common perspectives and emergent capabilities.