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This chapter considers the place of responsibility in confronting ecological sustainability and social equity problems in the food system. We present two illustrations addressing the following question: In what ways does responsibility present a way to close the metabolic rift in line with the vision of the global food sovereignty movement? First, using the example of Metro-Vancouver in Canada, we consider the ways in which urban people claim responsibility for land protection through the concept of urban agrarianism, defined as an urban ethic of care for foodlands, with an associated responsibility to exercise solidarity with those who cultivate and harvest food. Second, we discuss how deepening relational responsibility in legal and regulatory frameworks might hold the corporate food regime accountable in the Canadian context to address their role in and responsibility for mitigating an increasingly risky world, as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the responsibility of urban people to mobilise in solidarity with food movements, and against the corporate food regime in particular, will play a critical role in supporting the transition to sustainable and just food systems. This applies both to finding new ways to claim responsibility for this transition and to hold those actors that have disproportionately benefitted from the corporate food regime responsible. Such a reworking of responsibility is especially necessary as the context for food systems change becomes increasingly urbanised and risky.

Citizenship can be understood as a multi-dimensional status, involving civil, political and social rights and obligations (Yuval Davis, 1997; Lister, 2000). Barbara Hobson (2000) has argued that citizenship is more than the relationship of individuals to the state and includes social relations between individuals too. She points out that social relations lead to a gendered citizenship for women. Their weak economic position in the labour market, their related dependence within the family and lack of representation in the public sphere demonstrate the shortcomings of the liberal concepts of citizenship. Yuval Davis (1997) makes a similar point. Building on Marshall's concept of citizenship as membership of the community, she argues that an analysis of citizenship must include not only a focus on the relationship between the community and the state, but relationships between various collectivities (gender, race, urban/rural locations, etc.) and the community.

In this chapter, the authors take a close look at the current discourse of food system relocalization. From the perspective of theories of justice and theories of neoliberalism, food relocalization is wrapped up in a problematic, and largely unexamined, communitarian discourse on social justice. The example for California's localized governance of pesticide drift demonstrates that localization can effectively make social justice problems invisible. The authors also look at the EU context, where a different form of localization discourse emphasizes the local capture of rents in the value chain as a neoliberal strategy of territorial valorization. Examining Marsden et al.'s case study of one of these localization projects in the UK, the authors argue that this strategy does not necessarily lead to more equitable forms of rural development. In fact, US and EU discourses are basically two sides of the same coin. Specifically, in neoliberal biopolitical form, they both obscure politics, behind either the discourse of “value” in the EU or “values” in the US. Rather than rejecting localism, however, the authors conclude by arguing for a more “reflexive” localism that harnesses the power of this strategy while consciously struggling against inequality in local arenas.

This chapter deals with the progressive political mobilisation of peasantry in Poland, its institutionalisation, mainly in inter-war period, and its political appropriation by the Communist regime after 1945, when State socialism needed to ground itself in Polish national history and political traditions. These various mobilisations could be labelled as ‘populist’ because of their peasantist components and ideological trends, but the chapter considers them rather as a political form of representation, which political uses by actors fluctuate according historical contexts. The first part analyses the emergence of peasant movement and the success of peasant political parties in pre-1939 Poland. The second part shows how formers activists of these parties tried to produce themselves as the only historical heirs of the peasant movement, in opposition to the new, Leninist, peasant party of the Communist Poland. In the third and last part, the chapter analyses how the Communist official peasant party, the ZSL, invented new political traditions, mainly by historicising strategies, in the aim to encapsulate the peasant form of representation in its identity.

Looks at a study of issues involved in the introduction of the supermarket into a developing country — Israel. Discusses how urban consumers food shopping patterns have been affected, and reveals many respondents, despite easy accessibility to the supermarket, continue to buy some of their foods in traditional stores. Analyses 310 questionnaires of residents of Jerusalem and bases results on this, as the random sample of 75‐80 households was then drawn from each of four areas. States that the study results demonstrate problems involved in the common practice of using supermarket's share of market type data as the sole basis for indicating rate of a country's diffusion of rates and limitations of share. Implies that the supermarket will transform the traditional system of small one‐line food stores, which are considered costly, and with inefficient distribution of food items, into one which will consist mainly of supermarkets.

The purpose of this paper is to examine differences in property institutions in the USA and India and their effects on agricultural productivity.

This paper undertakes a case study of industrial organization of agriculture, comparing agricultural development in the USA and India, with a focus on changes in farm size over time.

In the USA, unlimited individual land ownership has enabled the gradual, long-term development of scale economies in agriculture through the application of capital and technology. In contrast, land reforms in India, especially land ceilings that limit farm size, have stunted productivity growth in agriculture by limiting achievement of scale economies and capital formation.

The finding that India’s consistently meager agricultural productivity stems largely from legal limitations on land ownership indicates that reforms that create a US-style open-ended land ownership structure would greatly increase farm productivity and total crop output in India.

This paper presents a side-by-side analysis of the USA and India and their radically different paths of agricultural development over time, and connects these divergent outcomes directly to the underlying institutional framework of property rights. Moreover, the paper analyzes the prospects for pro-market reform in light of public choice political economy, specifically applying Tullock’s insights regarding the “transitional gains trap.”

The purpose of this study is to critically assess how a National Government Park in Tokyo aims to commemorate the first 50 years of the Showa era (1926–1976), a time of drastic upheaval and societal change, with a naturalistic landscape.

The author investigated the park by conducting a literature review, making observations in the park on multiple occasions, conducting a survey of and interviews with park users and compiling photographs.

The author found that the park nostalgically highlights the early 1950s as the essence of Showa Japan. These few years represent a lull between the two Showa-era upheavals of war and rapid development and urbanization, and symbolize a last flowering of Japan’s 2,000-year-old agrarian way of life. The nostalgic presentation of Japan’s rural essence presents, the author argues, a different nationalist narrative than the military-glorifying variant that has gained traction since the end of the Cold War.

According to critical theorists, society and space are dialectically related and mutually constitutive. The nationalist vision of a landscape, then – including the park’s landscape – has potential to inform and help shape social beliefs and values.

While Japanese nationalism is a major topic among Western academics, the literature on nationalist landscapes in Japan – with the exception of “obviously” symbolic sites, such as Yasukuni Shrine – is extremely limited. This paper helps fill the gap.