Communities of Food Practice: Regional Networks as Strategic Tools for Food Systems Transformation

Abstract

A diversity of alternative food initiatives (AFIs) have emerged amidst concerns about the corporate-led industrial food system. While there have been significant successes, critics suggest that many AFIs are an inadequate response to the complex problems within the food system. Specifically, studies point to the way that many AFIs have adopted localized self-provisioning models that promote neoliberal ideals and facilitate retrenchment of the state, ignore the interconnected nature of problems within the food system, and idealize the local scale as having inherently positive characteristics. While critical research has identified important challenges, it also tends to consider place-based AFIs as operating independently or in isolated sectors of the food system. Despite circumstantial evidence, there has been little documentation or analysis situating AFIs within broader communities of food practice . In this chapter, I describe the ways AFIs in Canada have been involved in provincial food networks engaging in actual-existing collaborations that are making a broader impact within the food system. I draw on the theoretical framework of a transformative food politics to analyze the networks’ activities. While recognizing the important challenges, I point to specific examples that highlight where transformative work is already happening and identify the opportunities and areas for improvement within these collaborations. I argue that robust collaborative networks can act as communities of food practice, providing strategic opportunity for AFIs to mobilize and develop transformative orientations, but that these efforts have some significant limitations that must be addressed.