Toward a political geography of food sovereignty: transforming territory, exchange and power in the liberal sovereign state

Abstract

The failures of food security and other policies to guarantee the right to food motivate the calls for the radical reforms to the food system called for by food sovereignty. Food sovereignty narratives identify neoliberal state policies and global capital as the source of the food insecurity, and seek new rights for producers and consumers. However, the nature of territorial state power and the juridical structures of the (neo)liberal state may mute the more radical aims of food sovereignty. An engagement with literature on liberal sovereignty illustrates the primacy of the neoliberal market to the exercise of liberal sovereignty by the modern nation-state. The rights of the state to govern trade, often in the interests of capital, and the rights of trade and commerce often trump the citizen's right to food. Reading political theory against the practice of food sovereignty offers insight into solutions for food sovereignty that work within, against and in between the powers of the sovereign liberal state. These include reframing property rights as use rights, engaging in non-commodified food exchanges and practicing civil disobedience to usher in reforms without compromising on essential elements of the food sovereignty agenda.

Keywords:

• food
• power
• sovereignty
• space
• territory

The author would like to thank Amy Ross and the 2012 Graduate Seminar on Sovereignty in the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia for helping me think through the ideas in this paper. I would also like to thank three anonymous referees and Jun Borras for valuable comments on previous versions of this paper. The author would also like to thank the University of Georgia Research Foundation and the Department of Geography for its generous financial support of field research for this project in 2010 and 2013.

Notes

¹Nyéléni, 2007. The seven themes are: local markets and international trade policies, local knowledge and technology, access to and control over natural resources, sharing territories and land, conflicts and natural disasters, social conditions and forced migration and production models.

Additional information

Amy Trauger is an Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Georgia in Athens. Her work has focused on women farmers, sustainable agriculture and the alternativeness of alternative agriculture. She is pursuing a research trajectory in food sovereignty and is currently working on the book ‘We want land to live’: space, territory and the politics of food sovereignty to be published by UGA Press in the Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation Series.