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A Theoretical Model of Food Citizenship for the Analysis of Social Praxis

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Abstract

Food citizenship is considered a helpful tool for extending the debate about the rights and duties of citizens to the field of food, and for fomenting participation of all actors in the governance of agri-food systems. Despite its generalized use, this concept has still to be systematically defined. The objective of this article is to apply the analytical framework of citizenship to the food dimension in order to identify the features which, from an analytical perspective, characterise food citizenship. By reviewing the available literature, we identify which are the constituent elements associated with the current concept of citizenship and we explore the treatment that different food theory approaches give to them. We also analyze what are the characteristics attributed to food citizenship by scholars and food movement practitioners. In addition, we propose a theoretical model of food citizenship structured into eight propositions. These propositions have as core ideas an extended concept of the right to food, the assumption of obligations, the combination of public and private behavior, the individual and collective participation, the empowerment of all actors of the agri-food system, the promotion of justice, fairness and sustainability in food systems, and a cosmopolitan character of food citizenship. The theoretical model of food citizenship we propose is a framework under construction, but we believe it to be a useful tool to stimulate theoretical debate about the concept, guide empirical research and foment citizen awareness about food issues.

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Notes

  1. Taken from FAO (2003).

  2. Wekerle (2004), Holt-Giménez and Shattuck (2011), Fairbairn (2012) and Alkon and Mares (2012) analyze CFS initiatives in conjunction with food justice movements due to the convergence between them on many points.

  3. The section in bold is ours.

  4. Cosmopolitan citizenship has been identified with a form of moral universalism (Nussbaum 1994) as well as with a democratic model, that of “Cosmopolitan Democracy” (Held 1995). Both conceptions of cosmopolitanism defend the creation of a wider framework for citizenship that incorporates universal values and democratic international procedure and institutions (Peña 2000). They have been criticized for appealing to abstract notions of humankind and ignoring the real links which connect citizens with their communities and culture (Parekh 2003; Knight Abowitz and Harnish 2006). To overcome these criticisms some authors such as Faulks (2000) and Dobson (2003) speak of Post-Cosmopolitanism Citizenship.

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Acknowledgements

This article was originally prepared for the Workshop “Social Food Studies”, held at UNED, 12–13 March 2015, Madrid. We are grateful to the participants at the seminar and to Professor Jorge Benedicto for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Funding was provided by Ministry of Science and Innovation (SP). “Invisible Food. Social Representations of Food Systems: Causes Consequences, and Transformations” (Grant No. I+D+i CSO2010-22074-C03-02).

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  1. Department of Sociology II (Social Stratification), Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Calle Obispo Trejo, nº 2, 28040, Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Carmen Lozano-Cabedo & Cristóbal Gómez-Benito

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  1. Carmen Lozano-Cabedo
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Correspondence to Carmen Lozano-Cabedo.

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Lozano-Cabedo, C., Gómez-Benito, C. A Theoretical Model of Food Citizenship for the Analysis of Social Praxis. J Agric Environ Ethics 30, 1–22 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-016-9649-0

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