12 pages, via Online Journal, Current, prevalent models of the food system, including complex-adaptive systems theories and commodity-as-relation thinking, have usefully analyzed the food system in terms of its elements and relationships, confronting persistent questions about a system’s identity and leverage points for change. Here, inspired by Heldke’s (Monist 101:247–260, 2018) analysis, we argue for another approach to the “system-ness” of food that carries those key questions forward. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, we propose a model of the food system defined by the relational process of feeding itself; that is, the food system is made of feeding and only feeding, and system structures are produced by the coupling of that process to its various contexts. We argue that this approach moves us away from understandings of the food system that take structures and relations as given, and sees them instead as contingent, thereby helping to identify leverage points for food system change. The new approach we describe also prompts us as critical agrifood scholars to be constantly reflexive about how our analyses are shaped by our own assumptions and subjectivities.
Drescher, Larissa S. (author) and Hasselbach, Johanna (author)
Format:
Paper
Publication Date:
2014-05
Published:
International
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 127 Document Number: D02722
Notes:
Paper presented at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association 2014 AAEA/EAAE/CAES joint symposiump Social networks, social media and the economics of food, Montreal, Canada, May 29-30, 2014. 31 pages.
Lawson, Laura (author), Drake, Luke (author), and Fitzgerald, Nurgul (author)
Format:
Book chapter
Publication Date:
2016
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D08843
Notes:
Pages 141-158 in Dawson, Julie C. and Morales, Alfonso (eds.), Cities of farmers: urban agricultural practices and processes. United States: University of Iowa Press, Iowa City. 333 pages.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D08825
Notes:
Pages 1007-1023 in Rob Roggema (ed.), Agriculture in an urbanizing society volume two: proceedings of the sixth AESOP conference on sustainable food planning. United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Pages 601-1274.
20 pages., via databse., Based on a qualitative investigation comparing the ways in which French and Israeli Bordinary consumers view naturalness in food, this paper questions the choices they make in terms of food supply and their relations to the food production processes and the retail channels. The results of the study highlight that these representations, with the categorizations in which they are embodied, are strongly influenced by the context of life and the socio-cultural affiliations of these consumers. The comparison between the two countries allows to underline that the logic of categorization of the natural, and the related practices, are characterized by significant differences due to food cultures and relations of trust or mistrust regarding the food chains and industries. More broadly, the article demonstrates that investigating the conceptions that consumers have of naturalness is a relevant analyzer of their dietary decisions and their perceptions of food production and distribution systems.
