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This volume is a pioneering contribution to the study of food politics and critical agrarian studies, where food sovereignty has emerged as a pivotal concept over the past few decades, with a wide variety of social movements, on-the-ground experiments, and policy innovations flying under its broad banner. Despite its large and growing popularity, the history, theoretical foundations, and political program of food sovereignty have only occasionally received in-depth analysis and critical scrutiny. This collection brings together both longstanding scholars in critical agrarian studies, such as Philip McMichael, Bina Agarwal, Henry Bernstein, Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, and Marc Edelman, as well as a dynamic roster of early- and mid-career researchers. The ultimate aim is to advance this important frontier of research and organizing, and put food sovereignty on stronger footing as a mobilizing frame, a policy objective, and a plan of action for the human future. This volume was published as part one of the special double issue celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Journal of Peasant Studies.
List of contents
1. Introduction: critical perspectives on food sovereignty 2. Historicizing food sovereignty 3. Food sovereignty: forgotten genealogies and future regulatory challenges 4. Diálogo de saberes in La Vía Campesina: food sovereignty and agroecology 5. Peasant-driven agricultural growth and food sovereignty 6. Food sovereignty via the ‘peasant way’: a sceptical view 7. What place for international trade in food sovereignty? 8. Farmers’ rights and food sovereignty: critical insights from India 9. Life in a shrimp zone: aqua- and other cultures of Bangladesh’s coastal landscape 10. Toward a political geography of food sovereignty: transforming territory, exchange and power in the liberal sovereign state 11. Farmers, foodies and First Nations: getting to food sovereignty in Canada 12. The ‘state’ of food sovereignty in Latin America: political projects and alternative pathways in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia 13. Food sovereignty in Ecuador: peasant struggles and the challenge of institutionalization 14. Re-purposing the master’s tools: the open source seed initiative and the struggle for seed sovereignty 15. Food sovereignty, food security and democratic choice: critical contradictions, difficult conciliations
About the author
Marc Edelman, James C. Scott, Amita Baviskar, Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Deniz Kandiyoti, Eric Holt-Giménez, Tony Weis, Wendy Wolford
Summary
This volume is a pioneering contribution to the study of food politics and critical agrarian studies, where food sovereignty has emerged as a pivotal concept over the past few decades, with a wide variety of social movements, on-the-ground experiments, and policy innovations flying under its broad banner. Despite its large and growing popularity, the history, theoretical foundations, and political program of food sovereignty have only occasionally received in-depth analysis and critical scrutiny. This collection brings together both longstanding scholars in critical agrarian studies, such as Philip McMichael, Bina Agarwal, Henry Bernstein, Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, and Marc Edelman, as well as a dynamic roster of early- and mid-career researchers. The ultimate aim is to advance this important frontier of research and organizing, and put food sovereignty on stronger footing as a mobilizing frame, a policy objective, and a plan of action for the human future.
This volume was published as part one of the special double issue celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Journal of Peasant Studies.
