The Transformative Agrifood Movement in Catalonia: Operational Divergences in the Construction of Food Sovereignty

Abstract

Food sovereignty has increasingly become a common political framework for alternative food movements seeking for radical change in the agrifood system. The transformative potential of food sovereignty is context-dependent, resulting in different approaches and strategies in different territories. In this chapter, we address the case of Catalonia (Spain), as an example of global North food sovereignty movement, in which consumers play a predominant role. Based on five discourses on food sovereignty previously identified as a political proposal for social change in Catalonia, namely “activism,” “anti-purism,” “self-management,” “pedagogy,” and “pragmatism,” we discuss internal divergences within the movement that lead to convergences with other political trends in the agrifood system. Despite the movement converges in several critical points at a conceptual level, such as what is the meaning of food sovereignty, or its understanding of the food sovereignty proposal as a vehicle for deepening democracy, it has strong divergences at the operational level, that is, on how to achieve the social and political change it seeks. A structuralist or agency-focused vision of social change and the relevance assigned to ideological affinity among actors are core elements explaining such divergences. In this chapter, the authors explore these internal divergences within the Catalan food sovereignty movement, which at the same time lead to convergences with other repoliticization concepts within the agrifood studies literature (specifically food democracy, food citizenship, and political consumerism).

Citation

Di Masso, M., Rivera-Ferre, M.G. and Espluga, J.-L. (2014), "The Transformative Agrifood Movement in Catalonia: Operational Divergences in the Construction of Food Sovereignty", Alternative Agrifood Movements: Patterns of Convergence and Divergence (Research in Rural Sociology and Development, Vol. 21), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 159-181. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1057-192220140000021002