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Possible Food Economies: a Methodological Framework for Exploring Food Production–Consumption Relationships
Author(s) -
Holloway Lewis,
Kneafsey Moya,
Venn Laura,
Cox Rosie,
Dowler Elizabeth,
Tuomainen Helena
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
sociologia ruralis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.005
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1467-9523
pISSN - 0038-0199
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9523.2007.00427.x
Subject(s) - consumption (sociology) , production (economics) , food processing , food systems , diversity (politics) , field (mathematics) , dualism , food consumption , economics , agriculture , microeconomics , sociology , food security , political science , social science , agricultural economics , ecology , mathematics , epistemology , philosophy , anthropology , pure mathematics , law , biology
Modes of food production–consumption defined as ‘alternative’ have received considerable academic attention, with studies exploring both their potential for contributing to rural development strategies and the opportunities they provide for countering established power relations in food supply systems. However, the use of the term ‘alternative’ as part of a persistent dualism in which it is opposed to the ‘conventional’ is problematic as it loses sight of the specificity of different examples food production–consumption. Based on extensive field research with a series of very different food projects, this article develops a methodological framework which structures a description of how specific examples of food production–consumption are organised with reference to a series of analytical fields. This framework retains a sense of the diversity and particularity of particular cases of production–consumption, and directs attention to the particular locations of resistance to prevalent power relations in food systems that are made possible through different food projects.