The political dimension of food in Spain. A taxonomy of civic and political actions

ABSTRACT

Food has become a privileged space for analyzing different forms of citizen participation. This paper reviews typologies of political participation to determine which of them is more useful to classify the strategies of food-based engagement. We propose a taxonomy of civic and political food actions, with particular reference to Spain, integrating traditional and modern actions as well as and collective, online and offline dimensions. We applied a mixed methodology, based on primary sources – a survey of 1,0005 people and 22 in-depth interviews with different profiles of food activists- and secondary sources. The proposed taxonomy of food political participation is useful to map different forms of (non-) participation, latent participation and political participation in food issues that are currently being developed. This classification, by including civic and latent forms of involvement, can serve to guide future empirical studies about food participation that consider not only formal participation, but also factors as: showing propensity to search for information about food issues from an ethical, political, or environmental perspective; identifying with an ideology that promotes ethical, politically and socially responsible food decisions; or developing a political food lifestyle.

KEYWORDS:

• Food
• political participation
• social movements
• collective action
• Spain

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. https://www.foodretail.es/retailers/consum-sistema-donacion-virtual-alimentos_0_1467153277.html, (visited on 06/24/2021).

2. https://partidosain.es/propuestas-electorales-para-las-elecciones-europeas-2019-hambre/ (visited on 10/08/2021.

3. This Union was called Farm Workers’ Union (Sindicato de Obreros del Campo -SOC-) until 2005, when it was renamed the Andalusian Workers’ Union.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Spain). Project: “Political Food Consumption: Citizens, Activists and Institutions (CSO2016-76293 R)”. This research was carried out in the Sociology of Food Research Group at the University of Oviedo (Spain).