Peasants, Farmers, Chefs and Cooks: The Crisis of Food and the New Vanguard of Alternative Globalization

Abstract

This paper considers the how changing politics of food and agriculture, part of parcel of the global crisis, can be read as challenges to or affirmations of state sovereignty, from above and below, through a new dynamic of emerging local initiatives that empower small scale agricultural markets and communities. As local initiatives and transnational organizing have empowered new actors in food production and consumption at the local, national, and global levels, scholars in the social sciences broadly have sought to incorporate these new arenas of social action into focus, but the framework and methodologies of political science have as of yet found little purchase in examining the classic issues raised by these questions. By paying close attention to politics and the state, we offer a critical perspective and empirical observations on the dynamics, determinants and impact of food politics on questions of hegemony and resistance, state sovereignty and local action, globalization and participatory democracy. Our approach brings progressive analysis from political science to interrogate the question of food as it relates to global institutions and political economy, transnational and local social movements, democratic practice, and questions of state sovereignty