CFP: Constructing 'alternative' food systems? Actors, discourses and
representation.
Rural Geography Research Group.
Please respond to Moya Kneafsey ([log in to unmask]), Lewis Holloway
([log in to unmask]) or Damian Maye ([log in to unmask]), Geography
Subject Area, Coventry University, Priory Street, Coventry, CV1 5FB.
The deadline for abstracts is Monday 17th January 2005. Abstracts should
be 150 words long and include up to three key words.
Since the late 1990s, agri-food scholars have identified the emergence
of 'alternative' food systems offering potential to re-configure
contemporary food provision around more economically just, ethically
sound and ecologically sustainable relationships between food producers,
processors and consumers. Largely in the context of developed market
economies, notions of 'relocalisation' and the 'quality turn' have
figured prominently in these 'new' agro-food trajectories. Emerging
empirical research, however, is now problematising some of the
assumptions and terminologies embedded within academic discourses of
'alternative' food systems. Conceptually, calls have been made for a
move away from production-centred, broadly political economy analyses,
towards theorisations encompassing the cultures, sociologies and
politics of consumption. Within this context, we seek papers that
address the following inter-linked questions:
How can 'alternative' food systems be conceptualised?
What is their relationship with conventional systems?
How useful is the concept of 'alternative' in this context?
What discourses, representations and practices are involved in the
construction of 'alternative' food systems?
What critical insights can be gained from the perspectives of the
multiple actors involved in constructing 'alternative' food systems
(e.g. producers, retailers, consumers, institutions, activists)?
What is the significance of different developmental, institutional,
socio-cultural and geographical contexts for the construction of
'alternative' food systems?
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