Putting Food Sovereignty to Work: Civil Society Governmentalities and Canada’s People’s Food Policy Project (2008–2011)

ABSTRACT

The People’s Food Policy Project (PFPP) used ‘food sovereignty’ to unite civil society organizations and build a national food policy agenda in Canada from 2008 to 2011. Agri-food scholarship largely highlights the resistance and empowerment dynamic of food sovereignty in the context of neoliberal capital relations. We propose that the story of what food sovereignty discourse does, or could do, in the work of civil society organizations (CSOs), is more complicated. This article contributes to agri-food literature and CSOs studies by examining the governmentalities of the PFPP. We find that the PFPP’s food sovereignty produced at least two discourses: food sovereignty as ethic, or a governmentality of resistance and agrarian empowerment; and food sovereignty as tactic, which we see as a governmentality of administration by CSOs. While PFPP activists increasingly share a spoken commitment to food sovereignty, the analytic of governmentality allows us to show these important differences in the movement, rooted in how CSO actors understand their day-to-day work, and the tensions these differences bring to their seemingly united agenda.

KEYWORDS:

• Food sovereignty
• governmentality
• civil society
• peoples food policy project

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all the PFPP activists who shared their experiences with us. Thanks also to Patricia Bellamingie, Rhys Machold and this article’s anonymous reviewers for their insights.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Sarah J. Martin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9954-4213

Notes

1 Interviews are referenced with I (for interview), the interview # (from S1 to S10) and the year of the interview.

2 There are two main limitations to our primary data. Interviews and meetings were conducted in English, thereby neglecting the important and particular politics of Québec. Second, there were no interviews with Indigenous food sovereignty activists, or with representatives of international non-governmental organizations involved in the Canadian movement. Our analysis of the PFPP policy documents shows both groups also hold distinct perspectives on food sovereignty.

3 Eric Chaurette of Inter Pares, an international NGO focused on solidarity and equality, Cathleen Kneen of Food Secure Canada, and Colleen Ross of the National Farmers Union (NFU) and Heifer International.

4 The six pillars of Canadian food sovereignty were (1) Focuses on Food for People, (2) Values Food Providers, (3) Localizes Food Systems, (4) Puts Control Locally, (5) Builds Knowledge and Skills, and (6) Works with Nature (PFPP, 2011). A seventh principle—Recognizes that food is sacred—was added in the PFPP policy documents, and is discussed along with Indigenous food sovereignty later in the article.

5 The PFPP’s structure included the steering committee, a management team (both voluntary), and a small paid staff (a full-time coordinator and a few part-time staff).

6 Food as sacred:

For Indigenous peoples, this derives from the essential relationships between human beings and the natural elements, including all the other creatures. It also means that those who provide food must be seen as central to the food system, it must be shared with everyone, and … it cannot be commodified. (Kneen, 2012, p. 4)