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Beyond social embeddedness: probing the power relations of alternative food networks in China

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Abstract

Food justice scholars have criticized alternative food networks (AFNs) for lacking concern about gender, class, race, and ethnicity, thus not addressing structural inequalities. This paper further suggests that the incorporation of social justice into AFNs’ on-the-ground operations is critical in creating a more sustainable and just agri-food system that challenges the industrial and corporate-controlled food system. By exploring an urban–rural mutual aid cooperative in southwest China, this paper highlights a localized AFN that has successfully cultivated close social ties between ethnic minority small farmers in remote areas and urban consumers. Through these ties, consumers’ desires for safe food are satisfied and some small producers’ livelihoods have improved. Yet, competing values between supporting small farmers and satisfying consumers’ needs create tensions in the co-op’s daily operation. Importantly, I demonstrate that failing to incorporate social justice into its construction of social embeddedness, existing inequalities of gender, class, and ethnicity within the co-op not only go unchallenged but rather underlie consumers’ trust in food quality and make women farmers all but invisible. Developing a situated and feminist framework of AFNs, this paper contributes to existing literature on AFNs by challenging and complicating the assumption of social embeddedness derived from Anglo-American contexts, as well as by focusing on women’s perceptions and lived experiences.

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Notes

  1. I will refer to the co-op with the pseudonym M co-op.

  2. Consumer Wang, a frequent shopper at the co-op, was in her 40 s and worked as a government employee (gongwuyuan). Among the ten consumers I interviewed, six females were in their 40 s, two females were in their 30 s, and one male and one female were in their 50 s. Their occupations were primarily government employees, teachers, and individual business owners (getihu).

  3. Producer Yan was a male Zhuang farmer in his 30 s who mainly supplied rice and produce for the co-op. Among the eight producers I interviewed and observed, one female and one male were in their 20 s, two males were in their 30 s, and two females and two males were in their 40 s. Most of the producers were former migrant workers who had taken on ecological farming in hopes of improving their livelihoods while taking care of elders and children in the villages.

  4. Producer Cai was a male Miao farmer in his 40 s who supplied produce and honey products for the co-op.

  5. Producer Fang was a male Miao farmer in his 40 s who mainly supplied produce and meat for the co-op.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Adam Liebman, Ryan Galt, John Zinda, and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback and support. I am also grateful for all participants of M Co-op and others who agreed to participate in my research. This research was funded by the UC Davis Blum Center for Developing Economies Poverty Alleviation through Sustainable Solutions (PASS) project grants program and the UC Davis Henry A. Jastro Graduate Research Award.

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  1. Department of Global Development, Cornell University, 137 Reservoir Ave, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA

    Miaomiao Qi

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Qi, M. Beyond social embeddedness: probing the power relations of alternative food networks in China. Agric Hum Values (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-023-10510-x

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