Online Seminar: Alternative Food Organizations: What Is Wrong with the Existing Food Regime?

Online Seminar: Alternative Food Organizations: What Is Wrong with the Existing Food Regime?
Thursday, 29 October 2020, 17.30 Eastern European Time (UTC+02:00)

Brown Bag Seminar
Co-organized by UCRC and the Center for Bioethics

Jasmine Lorenzini, PhD
Research Fellow at the Institute of Citizenship Studies at the University of Geneva
Visiting Researcher at UCRC (LIVEWHAT Project, PI M. Kousis)

The existing food system builds on specific understandings of the role of the state, markets, and citizens coming
from neoliberalism and representative democracy. When put into practice these ideals produce specific
externalities. Research shows that different types of Alternative Food Organizations (AFOs) promote a sustainable,
socially just, and healthier food regime. However, few studies analyze how these organizations define the main
problems in the field and whether these AFOs share a common understanding of these problems. In this paper, we
identify three negative externalities resulting from the corporate environmental food regime where political conflict
may arise – health, social justice, environmental protection – prevailing views about markets and democracy could
also be contested. Using frame and network analyses, we examine to what extent AFOs active in Geneva
(Switzerland) share a specific understanding of problems in the existing food regime. Our empirical study shows
that AFOs address a broad set of issues, but seldom discuss problems associated with the food regime (6 percent of
the overall framing used refers to problems). We find limited evidence of a shared understanding of main problems
in the prevailing food regime in Geneva.