Urban transition toward food sovereignty

ABSTRACT

In cities throughout the world, people are taking steps to develop just, sustainable alternatives to the dominant food system. These initiatives pose questions which, to be answered, require new theoretical approaches. This study makes use of Marx's concepts of ‘social metabolism’ and ‘metabolic rift’, as well as Altvater's analysis of forms of capitalist appropriation, in order to understand how current society-nature relationships have given way to a socioeconomic spatial order which makes it difficult to develop just, sustainable food systems. From this theoretical framework, we identify and analyse some key aspects of the urban transition toward food sovereignty.

KEYWORDS:

• Agroecology
• appropriation
• democratization of food systems
• rural–urban dichotomy
• metabolic rift
• social metabolism

Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of our manuscript. Their suggestions have resulted in a stronger manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Ana García-Sempere http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4838-275X

Helda Morales http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7583-2125

Bruce G. Ferguson http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3963-2024

Austreberta Nazar-Beutelspacher http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7684-5435

Peter Rosset http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1253-1066

Notes

1. Some authors consider the corporate food regime a neoliberal phase of the second regime rather than a separate, third regime.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología [grant number 561556/307908]. This research was financed by a Conacyt scholarship.

Notes on contributors

Ana García-Sempere

Ana García-Sempere is a PhD candidate in the Department of Agriculture, Society and Environment at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (México) and the Department of Applied Economic Analysis at Universidad de Alicante (Spain). She is interested in understanding the processes that allow or hinder the implementation of agroecological food systems in city-regions. Currently, her research focuses on clarifying concepts, methods and tools for analysing and evaluating urban transition toward food sovereignty.

Moisés Hidalgo

Moisés Hidalgo is researcher and professor of applied economics at Universidad de Alicante, Spain. He teaches and researches on Economic Development, Ecological Economics, food sovereignty, cooperation for development and tourism economy. He is Director of the Interuniversity Master of Cooperation for Development at Universidad de Alicante.

Helda Morales

Helda Morales is researcher and professor at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) in Chiapas, Mexico, where she is a member of the Massification of Agroecology research group. She co-coordinates, Laboratorios para la Vida, an action research programme that trains educators to use school gardens and local food systems as venues for learning in agroecology, the scientific process, and healthy eating, and for fostering horizontal dialog between local and academic knowledge. She also works with urban agriculture from the perspectives of food sovereignty, landscape ecology, and autonomous pest prevention. She teaches graduate courses in food systems and agroecology.

Bruce G. Ferguson

Bruce G. Ferguson is researcher and professor in the Agroecology group at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. He studied ecological restoration and agroecology in the Perfecto (MS) and Vandermeer (PhD) labs at the University of Michigan. His current research and teaching explore agroecology, food systems and critical pedagogy. Together with Helda Morales, he co-coordinates Laboratorios para la Vida, a programme that trains educators in garden- and food system-based education. He is also part of a research group focused on scaling out agroecology for more just and sustainable food systems. He is associate editor of Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.

Austreberta Nazar-Beutelspacher

Austreberta Nazar-Beutelspacher is a senior researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) in Chiapas, Mexico. She is a physician, epidemiologist, sociologist, and specialist in rural development studies. Her research focuses on the relationship between health, gender and development. She is a regular member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences.

Peter Rosset

Peter Rosset is researcher and professor at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) in Chiapas, Mexico, where he is a member of the Massification of Agroecology research group. He is currently also a CAPES Visiting Professor in the Post-Graduate Program of Geography at the Universidade Federal de Ceará (UFC) in Brasil, and he is co-coordinator of the Land Research Action Network (LRAN).