Oxford Bibliography on Food as Commons
* Bibliography: Food as a Commons. By Jean-Marc Louvin. Food Studies / Oxford Bibliographies.
URL = https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780197764381/obo-9780197764381-0050.xml
Description
Excerpted from the introduction and ‘general overview’:
“Food as a commons is a new narrative around food and food systems. It is a new way of framing the production, distribution, consumption, and post-consumption of food anchored in the idea that neither food as a finite product nor the food system as an interrelated set of elements and phases should be reduced to economic goods arranged according to the logic of profit maximization. On the contrary, food as an essential product for every human shall be allocated based on universal access, self-determination, justice, democracy, reparation, and ecology. As such, the idea of food as a commons emerged in the late 2000s with the mounting recognition that food should not be conceived nor managed as a mere commodity. This idea resonated with the rediscovery and re-evaluation of the commons by Ostrom’s work, and even more so with a critical scholarship moving beyond her institutional lens and the epistemic regards of commons by economists, stressing how the commons—be they material or immaterial, natural, or cultural—are not mere resources managed collectively, but ought to be viewed as spaces of social and ecological reproduction resisting and defying the tryptic logic of dispossession, exploitation, and accumulation proper to capital. Hence, with the financial and food crisis of 2007–2008, scholars and activists started exploring a new way of understanding food. Not anymore as a private good, nor as a common good after the economists’ reductionist classification, but rather as a commons: socio-ecological and autopoietic systems powered by the practice of commoning, of doing together and caring for each other and nature. Based on this, food as a commons is to be understood as a theoretical lens, a pair of analytical, critical, and normative glasses enabling us to approach food from a systemic and ecological perspective, pinpointing its historical and ongoing structural injustices and sketching out the contours of environmentally and socially just food systems. Simultaneously, the dynamic nature of food commoning forces us to recognize the non-static nature of the concept and how it ultimately rests on a dialectic relation with the multiplicity and diversity of practices on the ground, practices held together via the red thread of opposing, resisting, and overcoming food and food-related resources commodification. The article is organized in four main sections. The first section provides an overview of food as a commons narrative. The second one revolves around food as a commodity. Being its opposite, it represents a crucial element to grasp both the meaning and origin of food as a commons. The third section explores the scaffolding principles of food as a commons starting with the theoretical framework and then looking into the connections and synergies between food as a commons and food sovereignty, food democracy, agroecology, degrowth, and finally feminism and decoloniality. The last section presents the dynamic moments of food commoning touching upon the diversity of practices regarding commoning land, seeds, and food sharing.
To grasp the concept of food as a commons comprehensively, it is essential to delve into its origins, epistemologies, thematic frameworks, and interpretations. Vivero-Pol 2017a and Vivero-Pol 2017b offer valuable insights, including a literature review detailing the narrative evolution from commodity to commons in academia, and an exploration of the diverse schools of thought surrounding it, elucidating the manifold understandings of food that underpin the emergent narrative. Carceller-Sauras and Theesfeld 2021 also explores the emerging framing of food commons identifying four key discourses around agriculture: joint responsibility, food waste, culture, and knowledge. However, providing the first comprehensive synthesis, Vivero-Pol, et al. 2018 offers a holistic approach, addressing the epistemological foundations, theoretical frameworks, practical applications, and challenges inherent in the discourse of food as a commons. More concretely, the conceptualization of food as a commons necessitates an initial paradigm shift from commodity-based to commons-based food systems, as emphasized in Pettenati, et al. 2018 within a care-based socio-ecological framework proposed in Chang 2018. This entails moving away from a reductionist, unidimensional perception of food and food-related resources as mere commodities, while simultaneously fostering commoning practices aimed at promoting justice, social inclusion, and ecological restoration, as highlighted in Ferrando 2020.”
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