Proceedings of the International Conference on Alternative Agri-food Networks & Sustainable Consumption

The term “sustainable consumption” is a slogan that arose in the South to counter the phenomenon of “overconsumption” in the North. It assumes that changing consumption patterns can have an impact on production patterns and resource utilization. It also assumes that today’s food systems preserve a right to food for everyone. While we do not as yet have a unified corpus on this issue, we can nevertheless identify an area that has been the focus of considerable investigation and findings by social scientists, namely, alternative food consumption-production patterns. Alternative Agri-food Networks (AAFNs) have provided the raw material for massive scientific investigation from various standpoints, ranging from their contributions to rural development strategies via short food supply chains (SSFCs) to the AAFNs’ potential to resist and/or build alternatives to the consumer/producer relations that are imposed on society by conventional agri-food systems. Some of these initiatives have been analyzed from a more territorial perspective. This is the case of Localized Agri-food Systems (LAFSs). However, this admittedly minor trend refers back to the highly controversial notion of “local” that one finds in the English-language literature. Finally, the notion of “(Agri)Food Systems” seems to be mobilized more in conjunction with the issues of food sovereignty and the new issues that are being raised by, for example, that of “agrifuels.”

The use of the term “alternative” has prevailed because it makes it possible to distinguish clearly between studies of alternative agri-food networks and conventional agri-food systems. However, it is problematic because it erases the key question of food systems’ resiliency and abilities to change and cope with a changing environment. This capacity for change concerns agri-food systems’ abilities to change their production and consumption patterns in favor of greater sustainability but also the social sciences’ abilities to allow for the complexity, contradictions, and dead ends of such movements (Dupuis, Goodman 2005).

The conference’s four strands

We want to tackle the question of the contributions that the study of agri-food systems and alternative agri-food networks (S3A-AAFNs) can make to sustainable development by looking at four themes, namely, 1) the initiatives’ trajectories, 2) food citizens, 3) workers in the food chain, and 4) research posture.

1. The initiatives’ trajectories towards greater sustainability: What can these initiatives’ (communities, collectives, AAFNs, etc.) practices and time frames teach us about sustainable development as a social experiment? Sustainable development is a research subject that enables us to set up observation schemes but also empirical practical intervention by players claiming to toe the sustainable development line. Following the distinction made by Thompson (1997) between a normative assessment approach (resource efficiency) and a comprehensive learning approach (functional integrity), we ask the question of sustainable development through that of the abilities of the schemes that the players set up to build awareness and learning procedures. How do these schemes influence the sustainability of production systems in particular? Seen from this perspective, the question of time can be envisioned more specifically. These questions can be grasped in a relatively conventional manner (extension of chains, professionalization of players, continuity, etc.), but one can also take a more radical approach and examine the time frames that are embedded in these networks, in the manner of the slow food movement, for example.

How do these trajectories challenge the ecological modernization project, which is allegedly based on scientific rationality (technical innovation) and democratic procedures (roles of pressure groups)? More particularly, don’t these trajectories challenge the role of the food citizen that we tackle in the next strand?

2. The civic consumer’s action theory: The role of the consumer cum citizen, “civic consumer,” or “food citizen” (in the case of food) is often raised, as in Moving from the consumer to food citizen (Wilkins, 2005). However, it seems to be treated more by carving away what it is not. A first perspectives is that of the supply that defines the consume as a chooser, whereby the supply develops an ability to influence the consumer’s behavior based on the products and information that target the consumer. A second perspective, that of a consumer who is “secondarily a citizen”, that is to say, a player in civil society who will influence the public policies that are supposed to influence or “moralize” citizens’ behavior as consumers (Spargaaren, 2003). Do these perspectives allow fully for the diversity of ways in which consumers get involved? How in particular can one develop an action theory that can allow for the paradox of the “value action gap” and envision habits and changing habits?

The consumer can be grasped either individually or as belonging to a group. Consequently, collective action can be considered one way in which the food citizen acts. Which forms of collective action strive to organize sustainable consumption and act as a political player? What forms of intervention and negotiation with production and market agents do they take? What are their impacts on the conditions under which products are produced and sold? Are these collectives trying to open up forms of deliberation around the sustainability of agricultural practices?

3. Workers and consumers: The aim of this strand is to allow for the worker in the food chain, the producer’s work, and the forms of solidarity that are forged between workers and consumers. Social science theorization about conventional agri-food systems gradually abandoned the issues of work and workers in the food chain over the past thirty years (Porcher, 2002). Is the study of “alternative agri-food networks” in a better position? This question of social justice is neither the subject of systematic practices in the agri-food initiatives studied in California (Allen 2003) nor the subject of very widespread theorization work, with the exception of some original research. Yet, historically, research on consumer commitment, cooperatives, and workers’ purchasing unions has attached a great deal of importance to social justice.

4. Research posture: As point out, placing the research under the aegis of sustainable consumption can lead to doing the research differently Godard and Hubert (2002). Approaches and practices may be affected by such a positioning, especially in the question formulation and outcome discussion phases. However, the research method itself can be affected. What does the question of sustainability, more specifically that of sustainable consumption, change in the research postures that are adopted and methodologies that are developed? Do the interdisciplinary research designs and finalized research have special roles to play? Specific subtopic: the issue of changes of scale and “governance.”