TY - JOUR
T1 - Diverse food economies, multivariant capitalism, and the community dynamic shaping contemporary food systems
AU - Dixon, Jane
PY - 2011/1
Y1 - 2011/1
N2 - Community practices are being rehabilitated and reinvigorated due to a set of extraordinary historical circumstances. This paper focuses on the various types of community practice, community discourse, and communitarian reference points influencing national food system dynamics. It begins by illustrating how corporate-dominated food systems have appropriated community concerns and motifs for profit, and describes several of the many counter-responses to corporate-dominated systems. These alternatives are not necessarily anti-capitalist, and are best conceived in Gibson-Graham's postcapitalist politics framework [(2006) A Post-Capitalist Politics, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis] and its language of diverse economies. While numerous alternative systems embed themselves within the capitalist market, they aim to advance multiple ends beyond profitability. Judgements as to whether diverse food economies offer transformative political possibilities lie in answering some fundamental questions about the accumulation and distribution of surplus value and the capacity for people and firms to be accountable to one another for their actions. In discussing this point, I reflect on the reverberations from past community development theorizing.
AB - Community practices are being rehabilitated and reinvigorated due to a set of extraordinary historical circumstances. This paper focuses on the various types of community practice, community discourse, and communitarian reference points influencing national food system dynamics. It begins by illustrating how corporate-dominated food systems have appropriated community concerns and motifs for profit, and describes several of the many counter-responses to corporate-dominated systems. These alternatives are not necessarily anti-capitalist, and are best conceived in Gibson-Graham's postcapitalist politics framework [(2006) A Post-Capitalist Politics, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis] and its language of diverse economies. While numerous alternative systems embed themselves within the capitalist market, they aim to advance multiple ends beyond profitability. Judgements as to whether diverse food economies offer transformative political possibilities lie in answering some fundamental questions about the accumulation and distribution of surplus value and the capacity for people and firms to be accountable to one another for their actions. In discussing this point, I reflect on the reverberations from past community development theorizing.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=78650613881&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/cdj/bsq046
DO - 10.1093/cdj/bsq046
M3 - Article
SN - 0010-3802
VL - 46
SP - i20-i35
JO - Community Development Journal
JF - Community Development Journal
IS - SUPPL. 1
M1 - bsq046
ER -