Framing transformation: the counter-hegemonic potential of foodsovereignty in the US context

Madeleine Fairbairn

Accepted: 25 August 2011 / Published online: 20 October 2011

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract Originally created by the international peasant

movement La Vıa Campesina, the concept of ‘‘food sov-

ereignty’’ is being used with increasing frequency by ag-

rifood activists and others in the Global North. Using the

analytical lens of framing, I explore the effects of this

diffusion on the transformative potential of food sover-

eignty. US agrifood initiatives have recently been the

subject of criticism for their lack of transformative poten-

tial, whether because they offer market-based solutions

rather than demanding political ones or because they fail to

adequately address existing social injustice. In this paper, I

consider how food sovereignty measures up to this critique

both as it was originally framed by Vıa Campesina and as it

is being reframed for the US context. First I briefly com-

pare food sovereignty to community food security (CFS),

which was developed more explicitly for the North

American context and has been criticized for its lack of

transformative potential. I then explore how the potential

of food sovereignty has been affected as it is reframed to

resonate with US audiences through an examination of its

use on the web sites of US-based organizations. I find that,

while some reframing of the concept to highlight consumer

choice does seem to be occurring, it remains a primarily

political concept. It may not, however, be fulfilling its

potential for addressing social injustice in the US agrifood

system because it tends to be used either in reference to

international issues or, when applied to the US context,

treated as a rough synonym for local control. I conclude

that, if advocates can successfully guide the reframing

process, food sovereignty could serve as a valuable

counter-hegemonic vision to complement the more prag-

matic and locally-grounded work of CFS advocates.

Keywords Food sovereignty � Alternative agriculture �Community food security � Food movements

Introduction

Since its emergence into the global discourse on food over

a decade ago, the idea of ‘‘food sovereignty’’ has gained

traction with organizations pursuing change in the global

agrifood system. Its advocates hail it as a new conceptual

basis for global agriculture, one which would transform the

oppressive trade relations and corporate control through

which the system is currently structured, replacing them

with socially-embedded markets and democratic gover-

nance. The concept was originally coined by founding

members of the global peasant movement La Vıa Campe-

sina, which represents a constellation of small farmer

groups, largely from the Global South. Since that time,

however, it has swiftly diffused, finding fertile ground

among academics, policy-makers, and development advo-

cates eager to expose the failings of the current food

system.

Though most extensively developed in the Global South,

food sovereignty also has considerable appeal in the North.

Its apparent transformative potential seems to present an

antidote to what some researchers see as the anemia of US

agrifood politics. US agrifood movements have been

accused of reinforcing the hegemony of neoliberal eco-

nomic ideology (Allen and Guthman 2006; Guthman

2008), failing to question the social injustices which

sometimes characterize local food systems and agriculture

in general (Allen 1999, 2004; DuPuis and Goodman 2005;

M. Fairbairn (&)

University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, USA

e-mail: fairbairn@wisc.edu

123

Agric Hum Values (2012) 29:217–230

DOI 10.1007/s10460-011-9334-x

Hinrichs 2003), and generally confining their efforts to the

‘‘politics of the possible’’ (Guthman 2008). In contrast,

food sovereignty seems to present a radical challenge to the

food system status quo. Vıa Campesina’s calls for food

sovereignty express an uncompromising rejection of neo-

liberal food system governance. The actions undertaken in

the name of food sovereignty, from the regular land

occupations of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement

(MST) to the self-immolation of Korean peasant activist

Lee Kyang Hae at the 2003 WTO Ministerial Meeting in

Cancun, embody this fierce opposition. Indeed, the food

sovereignty movement seems to be largely unconstrained

by the politics of the possible.

Over the last few years, the concept of food sovereignty

has been widely adopted in Europe and North America not

just by farmer organizations, but by advocacy groups

associated with the turn to sustainable/organic/local food

systems, as well as development NGOs, faith-based char-

ities, Native American rights organizations, and environ-

mental groups. Though this widespread adoption clearly

signals the power of the concept, it could also bring about a

transformation of its original meaning. This diffusion in the

geopolitical North entails a significant change in the con-

cept’s constituency: from Vıa Campesina’s organizational

strongholds among peasant organizations in Latin America

and Asia, where a relatively high percentage of the popu-

lation is engaged in agrarian livelihoods, to middle-class

‘‘foodies’’ in Europe and North America where only a

miniscule percentage of the population is now directly

involved in food production (Hendrickson et al. 2008).

My purpose in writing this article is to explore the

transformative potential of food sovereignty in the context

of its diffusion within the US. In doing so, I contrast its

discursive framing with that of other US agrifood move-

ments, focusing particularly on community food security

(CFS) because of their shared roots in the more mainstream

conceptions of food security. I am interested in whether

food sovereignty, a concept originally created by and for

peasant producers, can enter into widespread use in

industrialized countries without being reconstituted to fit

this new context. Is its appeal to a US audience leading to a

reduction in its oppositional content? Could it simply come

to resemble existing US food movements? Is its ability to

expose economic and social injustice within this new

context any greater than that of CFS?

In this paper I use the analytical lens of framing to

explore the current construction of food sovereignty by US-

based organizations. I discuss food sovereignty as a

dynamic discursive frame rather than as a set of inviolable

principles. In highlighting the volatility of the concept, I

hope to stimulate discussion about how to prevent food

sovereignty from going the way of other lamentably catchy

terms such as ‘‘sustainable development’’. An awareness of

the concept’s construction as a process is key not only to

preventing food sovereignty from getting reframed beyond

recognition but to ensuring that it fills the most useful

discursive niche possible alongside other conceptual

approaches to the US food system.

The theoretical framework for this paper is found in the

following two sections. The first includes a brief intro-

duction to the concept of framing and addresses some

methodological considerations. The second gives an over-

view of the literature on the transformative potential of

agrifood politics and then applies these concepts to food

security in general and CFS in particular. In the next sec-

tion, which contains the bulk of my analysis, I examine the

current framing of food sovereignty by US organizations

through an analysis of web site content. I find that the

concept continues to be a primarily political frame in the

US context despite some reframing to emphasize its rele-

vance to consumers. However, certain exclusions which

have characterized CFS and other homegrown frames may

be creeping into the framing of food sovereignty. There is a

tendency to use food sovereignty solely in reference to

international issues or, when it is applied to the US context

to reduce its meaning to local control. Finally I conclude

that, though food sovereignty does indeed show some signs

of being reframed for its Northern constituency, the re-

framing process could be accomplished without losing the

concept’s transformative potential. If advocates are careful

about how they construct this fledgling frame it can serve

as a catalyst for structural change, operating alongside

more locally-grounded and pragmatic frames like CFS

without gradually becoming them.

Framing in context

The concept of ‘‘framing’’ (Goffman 1974), as applied to

the literature on social movements, draws attention to the

significant and often influential ‘‘meaning work’’ per-

formed by activists in constructing and deploying their own

interpretations of reality (Benford and Snow 2000). In

applying this concept to struggles over meaning in the

global food system, I follow Friedmann (2005) who uses it

to suggest a link between social movement demands and

the political economy of food and agriculture. Friedmann

examines how, when a dominant ‘‘food regime’’ enters into

crisis social movements name its previously implicit

workings, thereby deepening the crisis. However, her

analysis also suggests a parallel project which frames

potential solutions to the crisis and thereby contributes to

the construction of a successor regime. In other words,

framing may also be an aspirational project. Social

movements compete with a host of other actors including

states, corporations, and international institutions, over the

218 M. Fairbairn

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naming and interpretation of food-related frames, such as

the right to food, food security, and food sovereignty,

which convey their own distinctive visions of how the

global food system ought to be structured in the future.

Like Friedmann, I use framing primarily as a conceptual

grounding rather than employing the methods of frame

analysis. The concept of ‘‘discourse’’ has also been fruit-

fully employed to examine the signification work done by

agrifood movements (Allen 2004), but I chose the language

of ‘‘framing’’ because it highlights the dynamic and con-

tingent aspects of meaning creation, as well as the potential

for conflicting interpretations of the same reality. Theorists

have emphasized that frames are not static over time, but

rather that the framing process is ongoing, and frequently

contested. Actors often attempt to discredit their opponents

by ‘‘counterframing’’ the same issues in a different light

(Benford and Snow 2000). In this article I follow Ferree

and Merrill (2000) who clarify the relationship between

discourses, ideologies, and frames by suggesting that they

can be imagined in the form of an inverted pyramid. Dis-

courses, which are ‘‘broad system[s] of communication’’

are located at the top, followed by the more internally

coherent and normative ideologies, and finally, at the tip,

the far narrower ‘‘cognitive focus’’ of frames (Ferree and

Merrill 2000: 455–456).

The framing process is also highly sensitive to the

context within which it takes place. Shifts in the political

economic landscape may lead some frames to lose reso-

nance or may trigger a reframing process. According to

Steinberg (1998), rather than involving the free manipu-

lation of language, framing processes take place within and

are constrained by ‘‘discursive fields’’ which are in turn

structured by hegemony and historical context. Another

critical contextual factor in the framing process is the

‘‘socio-spatial positionality (Leitner et al. 2008: 163)’’ of

both the framers and of their intended audience. Combining

this view with Friedmann’s insights suggests a dialectical

relationship between frames and the context within which

they are created; concepts are framed and reframed in

accordance with the shifting political and discursive terrain

but they also have a role in shaping that terrain.

My assumption in writing this article is that many crit-

ical contextual factors vary widely at different sites in the

network of organizations working to promote food sover-

eignty. Peasant farmers located largely in the South and

urban consumers in the North differ significantly in terms

of socio-spatial positionality. I attempt to understand

whether this difference, along with distinct opportunity

structures, is leading the term to be reframed for increased

resonance in its migration northward. My analysis of the

current framing of food sovereignty within the US context

is based on the use of the term on the web sites of US-based

organizations. The organizations included in my sample

were distilled from an internet search for the specific term

‘‘food sovereignty,’’ conducted in December 2008. The

search returned over 500 web sites and ended when the

search engine reported no more original hits. From this

initial search I compiled a list of 46 US-based web sites

with one or more articles containing the term.1 I excluded

personal blogs, news sources, and other formal publica-

tions, limiting my sample to organizations. I did this both

for reasons of manageability and because the ideas

expressed by organizations can be seen as both influential

to and reflective of those of their constituents (Allen 2004).

During the spring of 2009, I searched each organization’s

web site in greater detail for every page making mention of

food sovereignty. I considered the presentation of food

sovereignty on these web pages particularly in reference to

the elements of transformative potential outlined in the

next section: challenge to the neoliberalization of the food

system and challenge to existing social injustice.

The framing literature has been rightly criticized for

failing to capture the human element behind the frame. The

overriding focus on content can lead one to gloss over the

human agency, emotion, and variety of interpersonal

interactions through which social movements create and

present their worldview (Benford 1997). This article does

not escape these limitations, particularly because my

analysis is based solely on the information that organiza-

tions made publically available on their web sites. The

extensive deliberation which occurs behind closed doors

either through workshops, email listserv messages, or

conference calls is therefore absent, which must necessarily

result in an incomplete picture. It also means the exclusion

1 The organizations included in my sample were: ActionAid USA,

Africa Action, Agricultural Missions, Americas Program, Bioneers,

Center of Concern, Dane County Food Council, Drumlin Garden,

Equal Exchange, Family Farm Defenders, Fellowship of Reconcili-

ation, First Nations Development Institute, Food and Water Watch,

Food First, Food for Maine’s Future, Food Systems Network NYC,

Global Envision, Global Exchange, Global Governance Watch,

Grassroots International, Headwaters Food Sovereignty Council,

Heifer International, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

(IATP), International Indian Treaty Council, W.K. Kellogg Founda-

tion, Kitchen Gardeners International, Mvskoke Food Sovereignty

Initiative, National Catholic Rural Life Conference, National Family

Farms Coalition (NFFC), North American Congress on Latin America

(NACLA), Oakland Institute, Ohio State University Students for Food

Sovereignty, Organic Consumers Association, Pesticide Action

Network North America (PANNA), Policy Innovations, Presbyterian

Church USA (PC USA), Public Citizen, Rainforest Action Network

(RAN), Slow Food USA, South Central Farmers, Tribal Connections,

Vermont Commons, Vermont Compost Company, White Dog Cafe,

World Hunger Year.

This sample did not capture every single U.S. organization which

has mentioned ‘‘food sovereignty’’ on their web sites. In subsequent

searches I have found isolated references on the web sites of the

Federation of Southern Cooperatives, Local Harvest, and Northeast

Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-Vt). However, it

seems to represent the vast majority of the organizations of interest.

Framing transformation 219

123

of some organizations which participate in the framing

process but make no direct mention of food sovereignty on

their web site as well as organizations without the resour-

ces for a web site.2 A more thorough study would also

involve interviews with members of the organizations

included in the study to garner their experiences and

impressions of the way in which their organizations are

working to shape the concept of food sovereignty. On the

other hand, as the primary source of publically-accessible

information on the topic, these web sites do capture the

image of food sovereignty that is being presented to those

outside of the social movement itself.

Reforming the food system: US agrifood politics

and food security

The transformative potential (Or lack thereof) of US

agrifood politics

In recent years, alternative agrifood movements have blos-

somed and concepts like ‘‘fair trade,’’ ‘‘organic,’’ and

‘‘locally grown’’ have entered into the public consciousness

as never before. However, a burgeoning academic critique

of these movements has grown up in tandem. The critics

question whether these movements go far enough in the

challenge they pose to the status quo. Do they demand a real

transformation of the exploitative structures that constitute

the current agrifood system or simply settle for minor

alterations? In short, researchers have begun to question the

‘‘transformative potential’’ (Hinrichs 2003) of alternative

agrifood movements. In her work on the fair trade banana

initiative, Shreck (2005: 20) questions the initiative’s

‘‘counter-hegemonic potential’’ which she defines as

‘‘action undertaken by a social actor(s), either implicitly or

explicitly, in contestation of the hegemony of neoliberal

globalization and with the intention of bringing about pro-

gressive social change in society.’’ She adds that her defi-

nition implies that any real alternative ‘‘will involve radical

transformation of society.’’ Allen et al. (2003: 61) express

this critique by applying Williams’ typology of ‘‘alterna-

tive’’ and ‘‘oppositional’’ social movements. While alter-

native organizations work toward an ‘‘incremental erosion

at the edges of the political-economic structures,’’ opposi-

tional ones ‘‘seek to create a new structural configuration.’’

Whether posed in the language of transformative

potential, counter-hegemony, or oppositional action, criti-

cism of current agrifood activism can be seen as falling into

two general thematic areas. First of all, it is faulted with a

failure to challenge existing economic structures through

either practice or language. Instead, agrifood initiatives

often work within existing market structures to create new

purchasing options for the conscientious consumer and new

vending opportunities for small farmers. It is this adherence

to existing market mechanisms that Shreck (2005) sees as

preventing fair trade initiatives from fulfilling their full

counter-hegemonic potential. Allen (1999, 2004) has noted

that agrifood organizations tend to emphasize solutions

based on entrepreneurship and local market linkages, at

times obscuring the importance of government entitlement

programs or other political solutions. When policy change

is mentioned as a goal, the focus is often on local rather

than national policy (Allen et al. 2003), contributing to the

process of devolution often associated with neoliberaliza-

tion (DuPuis and Goodman 2005).These market-oriented

approaches to activism have also been observed in move-

ment discourse. Allen and Guthman (2006), for instance,

suggest that farm-to-school programs may inadvertently

reinforce ‘‘neoliberal governmentalities’’ through their

discursive emphasis on personal responsibility, voluntary

action, competition, and efficiency.

The overall effect of this tendency within US agrifood

activism, critics say, has been a depoliticization of food

politics. By placing responsibility for improving the system

primarily on the shoulders of conscientious consumers, cre-

ative entrepreneurs, and dogged volunteers, they let govern-

ment off the hook. Though many of these groups blame the

neoliberal ascendance of private governance over public

government for the ills of the current food system, they

contribute to this process by choosing to work through the

market rather than through government policy change. In

doing so, they passively accept the process through which

citizens with food rights and entitlements are replaced by

consumers with food choices and responsibilities.

A second line of criticism points out that alternative ag-

rifood movements often fail to tackle existing social injustice.

Allen (2004) observes, for instance, that the focus on

obtaining a livelihood for family farmers has led farmworkers

to become virtually invisible in the alternative agriculture

discourse. She explains that because US agrifood movements

rarely question the power asymmetries that divide the food

system along lines of class, race, and gender, their work may

inadvertently reproduce some of its exclusions. Others have

observed that the current emphasis on food system localiza-

tion obscures the intolerance and inequality that may be just

as prevalent at the local scale as at any other. These move-

ments therefore run the risk of sanctioning a ‘‘defensive

localism (Allen 1999; Hinrichs 2003; Winter 2003)’’ in which

exclusion rather than diversity is the norm or simply an

‘‘unreflexive localism (DuPuis and Goodman 2005)’’ in

which a small, unrepresentative group, often of middle-class

white people, deigns to speak for everyone.

2 The Boarder Agricultural Workers Project, for instance, falls into

the category of groups which have participated in framing activities

but did not actually reference the concept on their web site.

220 M. Fairbairn

123

By reifying the local in this way, agrifood movements

may confine themselves to what Harvey (1996), following

Williams, calls ‘‘militant particularism,’’ modeling their

movements on the experiences and worldview of a par-

ticular place and social position. In doing so, they lack

‘‘global ambition,’’ a more critical and abstract under-

standing which Harvey argues is a necessary complement

to the more concrete, local perspective (Allen et al. 2003).

Protected markets to free markets to farmers markets:

the many incarnations of food security

Applying insights from the literature on framing and

transformative potential to food security yields two

insights: the food security frame has shifted greatly over

time in tandem with changing contextual factors, but each

snapshot of the concept presented here still lacks signifi-

cant transformative potential. This may be because the

framers continue to be either global elites or Northerners

whose primary articulation to the food system is as con-

sumers. I singled out CFS from among other Northern

agrifood frames for comparison with food sovereignty

because it is native to the US and because both frames

derive from a shared reference point in the mainstream

conception of food security. Much of my discussion,

however, could also apply to the language used by other

Northern alternative food movements, such as slow food,

fair trade, and sustainable agriculture.

Food security was first conceptualized at the World

Food Conference in 1974. Originally framed essentially as

the presence of sufficient aggregate food supplies at the

national and international levels, food security in its initial

incarnation assumed the political centrality of the nation-

state and was justified through a rhetoric emphasizing

national development goals (United Nations 1974). It

depended on the ability of nation-states to amass stocks and

to encourage the industrialization of their domestic agri-

cultural sector. In other words, it was influenced by the

structures and discourses of the postwar period, despite

being framed at the very moment when the ‘‘postwar food

regime’’ entered into crisis (Friedmann 1993). This first

iteration of food security had little in the way of transfor-

mative potential; by drawing attention to national-level

food availability, it glossed over the question of how food

was actually distributed between groups within the country.

From this perspective, any remedy which increased

national food supply, such as imported food aid, was seen

as a boon, and the effects on peasant farmers and other

socially marginalized groups were beyond the scope of the

frame.

Almost immediately after its original elaboration, how-

ever, the framing of food security had already begun to

shift. In his groundbreaking 1981 book Poverty and

Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, Sen

demonstrated that national-level food availability does not

necessarily translate into household-level food access, and

further that household-level food security may not lead to

equal access for all individuals within that household (Sen

1981). The two major theoretical shifts contained in Sen’s

work—a shrinking of the scale of analysis and a focus on

economic access to food—were behind a simultaneous

reframing of food security at the UN and World Bank.

Today, the most basic and commonly used definition of the

term is that of the World Bank: ‘‘Access by all people at all

times to enough food for an active and healthy life’’ (World

Bank 1986: 1). During this period, food security mea-

surement underwent a parallel shift in focus from national

supply to individual caloric intake.

Though it represents advances in the definition and

measurement of food security, this new conceptualization

also echoes the neoliberal discourse which emerged in the

1980s. Food security had essentially been reframed to

highlight the microeconomic choices facing individuals or

households in a free market, rather than the policy choices

facing governments. In Steinberg’s terms, the food security

frame was now contained within a different discursive

field. This new version of food security was quite com-

patible with the policy prescriptions of the Washington

Consensus. As McMichael (2005: 276) summarizes,

‘‘Consistent with the neo-classical agenda, ‘food security’

came to be redefined, and institutionalized, in the WTO as

an inter-national market relation … a system of ‘free trade’

in agricultural products was installed to privatize food

security as a global, corporate relation’’. This mainstream

conception of food security has little in the way of trans-

formative potential. Created primarily by diplomats and

policy-makers at the UN and World Bank, food security

continues to be framed in terms drawn from the dominant

economic model, even as that model has shifted from

Keynesian to neo-classical economics. And though the

contributions of Sen and others have shed some light on

social inequality, it still avoids any questions about social

control of the food system (Patel 2009).

Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, food

security was reframed for application in the North Amer-

ican context as CFS. CFS originated outside of the ruling

bodies which have tended to monopolize the official

framing of food security, developed instead by profes-

sionals and activists in the fields of nutrition, sustainable

agriculture, and community development (Anderson and

Cook 1999). The definition of CFS—‘‘all persons obtain-

ing, at all times, a culturally acceptable, nutritionally

adequate diet through local, non-emergency sources

(Gottlieb and Fisher 1995: 3)’’—is a direct adaptation of

the mainstream food security definition. CFS practitioners

emphasize the need for sustainable solutions to hunger at

Framing transformation 221

123

the community level and work to empower communities to

become self-reliant in food (for a thorough description of

CFS see Winne et al. 2000). Advocates endorse a mix of

both entrepreneurial projects and local policy changes to

improve food access in low-income neighborhoods. CFS

advocates break with the mainstream conceptions of food

security in that they directly tackle social injustice by

making the difficulties of access to food for low income

neighborhoods the central focus of their frame.

The transformative potential of CFS is limited, however,

because it retains some of the mainstream food security

frame’s basic features. Firstly, the definition of CFS, like

the mainstream framing of food security, centers on the

health of the individual. This analytical focus is paired with

a discursive dependence on the language of individualism

and self-reliance. This discourse of individualism, Allen

(2004: 124) suggests, may inadvertently be contributing to

the shift through which ‘‘discourses of rights and entitle-

ments were replaced by neoliberal arguments about indi-

vidual responsibility.’’ Secondly, the solutions envisioned

by CFS advocates tend to involve fostering market-based

alternatives to the current food system in the form of

community supported agriculture (CSA), farmers’ markets,

and locally-based food processing facilities. As Allen

(2004) and Guthman (2008) point out, such market-ori-

ented initiatives may have the effect of reinforcing neo-

liberalism through their unquestioning use of the market

mechanism. In their effort to ensure durable solutions, in

fact, CFS advocates emphasize the need for entrepreneurial

solutions even more than other food movements do.

A final limitation to the transformative potential of CFS is

that it tends to be focused on the local to the exclusion of the

bigger picture. This cannot be attributed to CFS’s derivation

from the mainstream food security frame. Rather, its

development of solutions at the grassroots is what distin-

guishes it most from the one-size-fits-all approaches to

achieving mainstream food security and is certainly one of

its greatest strengths. However, as Bellows and Hamm

(2002: 36) point out, designating the local as the primary site

of agrifood activism can be a shortcoming as ‘‘A solely

local-based approach for change would result in a piecemeal

impact on the food systems that would dot the landscape

with a ‘patchwork’ of initiatives and successes or failures.’’

Similarly, Anderson and Cook (1999) observe that CFS

lacks an underlying theory, including a political philosophy,

which could serve to support and unify its practice. In

Harvey’s (1996) terms, the militant particularism of most

CFS projects leaves it with little in the way of global

ambition. Because CFS operates at a relatively low level of

abstraction, it may employ market-oriented techniques

which improve access to healthy food in a particular setting,

but may not be well articulated to the broader struggle

against neoliberalization or corporate control of the global

food system. This makes CFS a somewhat limited tool for

effecting genuine food system transformation.

Transforming the food system? food sovereignty

in the US context

A counterframe for the corporate food regime

The emergence of the food sovereignty frame exemplifies

Friedmann’s observation that new names are created in

response to the failings of the dominant global food

regime. In fact, McMichael (2005) sees food sovereignty as

a specific challenge to what he calls the ‘‘corporate food

regime’’—an industrialized food system structured around

corporate control and premised on neoliberal economic

doctrines. Framed as a reaction to this specific constellation

of forces, it can be argued that food sovereignty has been

just as heavily influenced by the current political economic

context as was food security. It can be seen as a ‘‘count-

erframe’’ (Benford and Snow 2000) to food security—an

alternative schema for understanding the global food sys-

tem which is conditioned by the vastly different position-

ality of the framers. In their efforts to reduce hunger, the

global political elite who first framed food security did not

question the political and economic structures within which

they rose to power. Food sovereignty, on the other hand,

was framed by small producers, many from the Global

South, whose daily lives had given them an acute aware-

ness of the injustice caused by these structures.

The food sovereignty movement has not only escaped

unscathed from the critiques levied at CFS and other US

agrifood movements, it is often held up as an example of

genuine opposition to the existing structures of the global

agrifood system. So far from being branded with the charge

of reformism, it has been called a new paradigm and an

‘‘alternative modernity’’ (Desmarais 2007; McMichael

2005). To avoid too much reiteration of the existing liter-

ature on Vıa Campesina’s vision of food sovereignty

(Desmarais 2007; McMichael 2005; Patel 2009; Windfuhr

and Jonsen 2005), I will limit myself here to summarizing

this literature as it relates to the two aspects of transfor-

mative potential that seem to be most lacking from US-

based agrifood movements: challenging the dominant

economic system and combating social injustice.

In the former area, food sovereignty advocates challenge

neoliberalism on a micro-level by refusing to adopt its

individualizing and commodifying language. Instead they

emphasize peasant solidarity, often call for collective

control over resources, and question the very commodifi-

cation of food, arguing that ‘‘food is not just another

merchandise and that the food system cannot be viewed

solely according to market logic’’ (World Forum on Food

222 M. Fairbairn

123

Sovereignty 2001: 2). The framing of food sovereignty is

also calculated to delegitimate the increasingly global-level

and undemocratic control of the world food system by

transnational corporations, the WTO, and the Bretton

Woods Institutions. To do so, food sovereignty advocates

assert a ‘‘new and modern definition of sovereignty

(Windfuhr and Jonsen 2005: 33)’’ which is not the exclu-

sive privilege of the nation-state, but neither does it operate

solely at the local level. Instead it is characterized by

democratic control of food and agriculture policies at all

levels. In general, food sovereignty is an intensely political

concept which focuses on policy change rather than market

creation. Patel (2007: 313) explicitly contrasts it with more

consumption-oriented movements, calling it ‘‘far richer,

and more enriching, than an ethical form of hedonism for

those able to afford it.’’

In the area of challenging social injustice, food sover-

eignty seems to give voice to the people who are most

marginalized within the existing food system. Women’s

rights as well as women’s role in food production hold a

central place in most of Vıa Campesina’s publications on

food sovereignty. Vıa Campesina’s Women’s International

Committee even produces its own separate women’s

statements on food sovereignty (see for instance Vıa

Campesina 2009). The food sovereignty frame also

amplifies the voices of indigenous people by incorporating

indigenous views of territoriality and collective control

over resources (Wittman 2009). Finally, the obstacles faced

by landless people are a critical focus of the food sover-

eignty frame. One of the primary demands of food sover-

eignty advocates is agrarian reform, including land

redistribution to landless workers (Rosset 2006). The

overriding focus on eradicating inequality in the forms of

patriarchy, racism, and class power has led Patel (2009) to

suggest that ‘‘radical egalitarianism’’ is the core principle

behind food sovereignty.

Reframing radicalism

Given that the contours of food sovereignty were shaped by

the framing context and the positionality of the framers, it

must be asked how these contours will shift as the concept

gains popularity in places relatively distant—spatially,

socially, politically and experientially—from its locus of

origin. Since the early 2000s, the concept has diffused

beyond Vıa Campesina and the other, largely Southern

peasant networks which initially used the term, to a much

broader constituency including a variety of Northern agri-

food NGOs. Here I present some preliminary findings on

how food sovereignty is currently being framed on the web

sites of US-based organizations. This review suggests some

trends in how food sovereignty is being framed to resonate

with its growing US audience. It uncovers both promise

and potential pitfalls for the transformative potential of the

frame as it is picked up by US agrifood activists. This

should not be read as implying that the international vision

of food sovereignty promulgated by Vıa Campesina has

stayed static while its US counterpart drifts. On the con-

trary, food sovereignty has already been repeatedly

reframed at the international level. In particular, Vıa

Campesina and other core framers, such as delegates to

international food sovereignty forums, engage in frequent

reframing, particularly to make it more theoretically

coherent and more inclusive of all perspectives (Desmarais

2007; Patel 2009).

The number and diversity of US-based organizations

now using the term food sovereignty are a testament to the

concept’s broad appeal. They include a diverse cross-sec-

tion of US agrifood activism including groups engaged in

promoting urban agriculture, fair trade, family farming, and

organics. Also represented are development NGOs, reli-

gious charities, Native American rights organizations, and

environmental groups. However, not all of the groups that

make use of the term on their web sites are equally engaged

in framing the concept. The work of framing food sover-

eignty for the US context can be seen as occurring at two

distinct levels. One level is constituted by a group of

organizations which are actively invested in the concept

and probably consciously aware of their role in the framing

process. These organizations include: Agricultural Mis-

sions, Family Farm Defenders, Food and Water Watch,

Food First, Grassroots International, Institute for Agricul-

ture and Trade Policy (IATP), National Family Farms

Coalition (NFFC), and World Hunger Year (now renamed

WhyHunger). Most of these groups have direct ties to Vıa

Campesina—the NFFC is a member of Vıa Campesina

while others have at different times had the relationship of

funder, partner, or statement coauthor—making them par-

ticularly conscious of the original intent behind the concept

of food sovereignty.

The framing work is also proceeding at a second level,

however, which consists of those groups that are farther

from the hub of food sovereignty activism but nonetheless

make use of the concept to varying degrees. This group is

by far the larger of the two. While the first set of organi-

zations provides insight into the active reframing of food

sovereignty to appeal to a US audience, the second set

gives us insight into whether the broad appeal of the con-

cept will lead to its eventual dilution or cooptation.

Through their sometimes unified, sometimes fragmented

efforts, these two sets of organizations are framing food

sovereignty for the US. In what follows I assess how this

emerging frame measures up to the critiques levied at

existing US agrifood activism. In particular I examine

whether it retains its transformative potential in challeng-

ing neoliberalism and in addressing social injustice.

Framing transformation 223

123

Still political after all these years? food sovereignty’s

challenge to neoliberalism

US agrifood movements have been criticized for their tacit

acceptance of existing economic orthodoxy. Does the food

sovereignty frame allow organizations to mount a stronger

challenge to the hegemony of neoliberalism? Or is it

gradually being depoliticized, reduced to conscientious

consumption and the ‘‘politics of the possible’’? I found the

answers to these questions to be somewhat mixed. On the

one hand, some reframing of the concept to highlight

consumer choices and benefits does seem to be occurring.

However, the frame shows minimal signs of depoliticiza-

tion; although US-based organizations do not participate in

the civil disobedience of the original food sovereignty

framers, they continue to frame their demands largely in

terms of policy change.

Some organizations did indeed evince a reframing of

food sovereignty toward a more consumerist orientation. In

the most blatant cases, the organizations referencing food

sovereignty were actually selling something. These tend to

be organizations far from the center of action of the food

sovereignty movement; their use of the concept is more a

name check than an effort to reconsider their work through

the lens it provides.

The Vermont Compost Company, for example, has an

entry for food sovereignty in their ‘‘compostopedia’’ which

consists only of a copy of the Wikipedia entry for food

sovereignty and some links to articles by other organiza-

tions (Vermont Compost Company 2007). The White Dog

Cafe, a socially conscious restaurant and fair trade shop in

Philadelphia, goes further with an article by the owner

which praises food sovereignty efforts in Cuba and sug-

gests that in the US, ‘‘Conscious eaters can use our dollars

to strengthen our regional food system, and stop buying

processed foods, sodas and factory meat’’ (Wicks 2008).

Food sovereignty was also referenced by Equal Exchange,

one of the major vendors of fair trade coffee, tea, and

chocolate, and Tree Hugger, a company which makes its

profits by publicizing environmentally-friendly products.

Although all of these companies have a social or envi-

ronmental orientation, the use of food sovereignty at all in

such a context could portend challenges in protecting the

term from future cooptation.

A more common and considerably more subtle way in

which food sovereignty is being reframed is through a

greater emphasis on benefits to consumers. The Food First

web site, for example, defines food sovereignty as ‘‘peo-

ple’s right to healthy and culturally appropriate food pro-

duced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods,

and their right to define their own food and agriculture

systems—at home and abroad’’ (Food First 2009). The

mention of consumer rights before producers, and the

emphasis on the health of the food both distinguish this

definition from the earlier definitions of food sovereignty.3

The Organic Consumers Association web site also adopts a

definition of food sovereignty which emphasizes consum-

ers and health: ‘‘Food sovereignty is the right of family

farmers to grow food for their families and local markets

and the right of consumers to get access to local, healthy

foods’’ (Organic Consumers Association 2009). Similarly,

Public Citizen (2009) uses the word ‘‘healthy’’ four times

in their two paragraph introduction to food sovereignty.

This discursive shift toward the benefits of food sover-

eignty for consumers is paralleled by an increased

emphasis on consumption choices as a means to effect food

sovereignty. When food sovereignty is discussed in the US

context, farmers markets, CSAs, country of origin labeling

(COOL), farm-to-cafeteria programs, and other policies

aimed at increasing the consumption of locally grown food

are some of the most frequently mentioned means for

achieving it.

To a large extent, however, food sovereignty as framed

by US organizations has retained its critical stance towards

neoliberal governance of food and agriculture. Though the

type of political action recommended by US organizations

is certainly tame compared to that undertaken by some of

their international counterparts—I could not find a single

call to commit civil disobedience—it is political nonethe-

less. Allen’s (1999) critique of CFS for downplaying the

continued need for government policies seems to apply

much less to food sovereignty, at least as it is currently in

use. The need for some kind of policy change was men-

tioned by almost every organization I surveyed, including

those which were generally more consumer-oriented. Nor

were the calls primarily for local-level policy change. The

need to change federal policies was in fact mentioned by

many organizations. However, as I explain in the next

section, this awareness of the need for national-level action

3 Vıa Campesina’s original definition of food sovereignty, released

during the World Food Summit (WFS) in 1996, reads:

Food sovereignty is the right of each nation to maintain and

develop its own capacity to produce its basic foods respecting

cultural and productive diversity. We have the right to produce

our own food in our own territory. (Vıa Campesina 1996: 1)

More frequently cited, however, is the definition produced by the

NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty at the World Food Summit:

Five Years Later (WFS:fyl) in 2002.

Food Sovereignty is the RIGHT of peoples, communities, and

countries to define their own agricultural, labor, fishing, food

and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economi-

cally and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances.

It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which

means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and

culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources

and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies. (NGO/

CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty 2002: 2)

224 M. Fairbairn

123

seems in no way to have precluded the reification of the

local which critics have observed in other US agrifood

movements.

The 2007 Farm Bill was a particular focal point among

food sovereignty advocates. Change to the Farm Bill was

mentioned as a means to achieving food sovereignty by

most of the core framers, but also by more peripheral

groups like the fair trade and advocacy group Global

Exchange, and the public interest group Public Citizen. In

fact, the White Dog Cafe article on food sovereignty

mentioned above also states that, ‘‘At the federal level, we

need a new Farm Bill that moves billions of dollars a year

in corporate subsidizes to building local food systems that

make fresh organic fruits and vegetables affordable to all

citizens’’ (Wicks 2008). Even Grassroots International’s

teaching module specifically aimed at consumers repeat-

edly emphasizes the need for federal policy changes. The

factsheet included in the packet is entitled ‘‘Why Should

Consumers Care About Agriculture and Trade Policy?’’

(Grassroots International and NFFC 2008b:18). The fact-

sheet lists several federal policies that would contribute to

food sovereignty, including anti-trust legislation, increased

federal funding for farm-to-cafeteria programs, and chan-

ges to the Farm Bill. The National Animal Identification

System (NAIS) is another federal policy which was occa-

sionally framed through the lens of food sovereignty, par-

ticularly by the farmer organizations NFFC and Family

Farm Defenders.

Though the food sovereignty frame seems to have

undergone some marketization in the US context, it retains

its basic political orientation. The frame certainly empha-

sizes consumption, particularly of local foods, as well as

issues of food safety and quality, to a far greater extent than

the original statements issued by Vıa Campesina or at

global forums. However, the organizations which employ

the concept, particularly those ‘‘primary framers’’ with a

close working relationship to Vıa Campesina, continue to

stress the need for policy change both at the federal and the

local level. Although some of these policy recommenda-

tions do have a market orientation, such as frequent calls

for mandatory COOL, many do not. Thus far at least, the

food sovereignty frame seems to be avoiding the ‘‘neolib-

eral governmentalities’’ that its US counterparts have been

accused of contributing to (Guthman 2008). Though it may

have drifted somewhat closer to the CFS frame—placing

an increased emphasis on local market linkages—it is still

essentially a political frame.

Silences broken, silences maintained: food

sovereignty’s challenge to social injustice

Does food sovereignty shed more light on social injustice

than CFS or other homegrown agrifood frames? Here,

again, the answer may be both yes and no. The web site

content I examined indicated an awareness of some types

of structural inequality while leaving intact silences which

have been criticized in previous US frames. Food sover-

eignty, as adapted for the US context, therefore displays

both potential and shortcomings as a response to this

critique.

The food sovereignty frame seems to facilitate

acknowledgement of the structural inequality faced by

Native Americans. Several groups have embraced it as a

means to discuss the marginalization of Native Americans

at both producers and consumers within the existing food

system and to envision how their situation could be

improved. One example is the First Nations Development

Initiative which produced the First Nations’ Food Sover-

eignty Assessment Tool (FSAT) aimed at helping Native

communities regain control over their food system and

reintroduce healthy and traditional foods (Bell-Sheeter

2004). This publication draws attention to the shockingly

high rates of heart disease, diabetes and other diet-related

health problems suffered by Native American communities

and points out the structural and historical roots of this

health inequality. It encourages tribes to use the FSAT to

assess their own food resources with the ultimate aim of

increasing local economic control and reintroducing tra-

ditional foods as a means to ensuring physical and cultural

survival.

Another example of the food sovereignty frame being

used to shed light on the marginalization of Native

Americans within the existing US agrifood system is the

Mvskoke Food Sovereignty Initiative (MFSI), a project of

the Muscogee (Creek) Nation based out of Okmulgee,

Oklahoma. Like the FSAT, the MFSI texts place a heavy

emphasis on the cultural significance of food. They explain

that ‘‘Mvskoke food heritage and traditions goes back in

time long before the Trail of Tears forced them to Okla-

homa,’’ adding that ‘‘Growing, preserving and using tra-

ditional foods plays an important role in cultural activities’’

(MFSI 2009).

A final example is the Headwaters Food Sovereignty

Council, founded by the Indigenous Environmental Net-

work (IEN), a Native American environmental justice

advocacy group. The Council has the goal of ‘‘creating a

healthy and just food system for everyone within the

Headwaters Food Shed Region’’ (Headwaters Food Sov-

ereignty Council 2008), which includes ten counties and

three reservations in Northern Minnesota. Anishinaabe

activist Winona LaDuke, who belongs to one of the three

reservations, has also adopted the conceptual lens of food

sovereignty for her talks on intellectual property rights and

genetic engineering (see for instance First Voices Indige-

nous Radio 2006). The food sovereignty frame may have

particular resonance with Native American activists for

Framing transformation 225

123

several reasons including the insistence on the cultural

value of food, the particular implications of the word

‘‘sovereignty’’ for Native peoples, and the explicit naming

of structural causes of inequality within the food system.

Gender inequality and women’s rights also continue to

be highlighted in the framing of food sovereignty by US-

based organizations, though less so than by its international

framers. This contrasts with the general silence on gender

issues found in the more mainstream agrifood frames.

According to Allen (2004: 157), ‘‘the amount of attention

to gender relations in alternative agrifood efforts is negli-

gible.’’ The food sovereignty frame seems to facilitate a

more open discussion of gender inequality in agrifood

systems. IATP has been particularly attentive to issues

surrounding gender inequality. With the International

Gender and Trade Network (IGTN), IATP co-published A

Row to Hoe which examines agricultural trade liberaliza-

tion from a gendered perspective. The author of this pub-

lication explains that

The notion of food sovereignty fits well with a fem-

inist agenda… Food sovereignty recognizes women

as agents and actors and not merely consumers in the

food system….

In the same way that definitions of gender include

social, economic and political constructs of power,

food sovereignty asserts that agricultural liberaliza-

tion is a power construct defined by social, economic

and political circumstances that run counter to human

rights goals. In these ways, the term food sovereignty

resonates within the feminist movement. (Spieldoch

2007: 12)

Similarly, ActionAid USA, a non-profit which fights

poverty in developing countries, specifically advocates a

‘‘women’s rights approach to food sovereignty’’ which

would ‘‘ensure that rural women are central in decision

making around their food and agricultural production’’

(Solomon 2008: 2).

Although the food sovereignty frame does seem to have

allowed for a greater examination of social injustice,

especially as experienced by women and Native Ameri-

cans, the form it has taken in the US may have some

shortcomings. Two trends in particular suggest limitations

in how the frame is being applied in the US context. One

such trend is that some groups seem to apply the food

sovereignty frame primarily in discussions of the Global

South or of international linkages, reverting to a more

mainstream frame such as sustainable agriculture or

localism when referring to the North.

One simple illustration of this point is that organizations

sometimes isolate their discussions of food sovereignty to

the section of their web site designated for international

issues. Food and Water Watch addresses food sovereignty

in the ‘‘World’’ section of their web site under the heading

of ‘‘Global Trade’’ (Food and Water Watch 2009). The

NFFC has their main discussion of food sovereignty on

their ‘‘Farmers Worldwide’’ page (NFFC 2009) while on

the World Hunger Year web site, it can be found under the

link to their ‘‘global movements program’’ (World Hunger

Year 2009). The web site explains, ‘‘WHY’s Global

Movements Program works through international and US

civil society networks. We link WHY’s domestic work on

hunger and poverty to broader global movements for food

sovereignty… (World Hunger Year 2009)’’ Rather than

reframing all of their work through the lens of food sov-

ereignty, they seem to see their work on food sovereignty

as the international counterpart to their regular, domestic

work.

Along the same lines, the insights into social inequality

provided by the food sovereignty frame are often applied

primarily in the international context. The critical eye for

women’s rights abuses mentioned above, for instance,

seems only to hold when the women in question live in the

Global South. While several US organizations use the food

sovereignty frame to discuss gender inequality in the

South, I was unable to find any that mentioned it in the US

farm belt or inner cities.

A similar myopia seems to apply to farmworker rights.

The radical stance of Vıa Campesina—that massive

agrarian reform is needed to get land into the hands of

landless farmworkers—is applauded by US organizations

which frequently cite the struggles of the MST. When

discussing the flaws of the US food system, however, the

silence on farmworker rights noted by Allen (2004) does

not meet with any particular exception. While family

farmers are extremely well represented (by the NFFC and

Family Farm Defenders in particular) in shaping a vision of

food sovereignty in the US context, farmworkers seem

largely to be spoken for. There is some evidence that the

struggles of US farmworkers could fit under the food

sovereignty umbrella—the Border Agricultural Workers

Project is a member of Vıa Campesina and involved in

discussions of food sovereignty (Food First 2006), and

several web sites mentioned the Coalition of Immokalee

Workers’ (CIW) fight for higher pay as an example of a

struggle for food sovereignty (Grassroots International and

NFFC 2008b: 17; Peck 2008). Overall, however, relatively

little mention is made of farmworkers and landlessness in

the North, especially compared to family farmers, who are

mentioned in almost every discussion of the domestic ag-

rifood system. Again it seems that the food sovereignty

movement’s insistent challenge to existing social structures

hasn’t necessarily translated intact to a Northern setting.

The second troubling trend is that, when food sover-

eignty is applied to the US setting, there is a definite ten-

dency to reify the local. Local-level control, in particular, is

226 M. Fairbairn

123

frequently referenced as the only or the best way to ensure

food sovereignty. This contrasts with Vıa Campesina’s

intentionally broad construction of the concept in which

‘‘sovereignty’’ may be exercised at many different levels.

Despite the frequent calls to reform national-level policies

such as the Farm Bill, food system localization seems to be

the end goal in mind for most advocates working on

domestic issues.

Thus, Family Farm Defenders’ has an article suggesting

‘‘20 Ways to Promote Local Food Sovereignty,’’ fourteen

of which relate directly to food system relocalization

(Family Farm Defenders 2007). Compare this to Vıa

Campesina’s original seven ‘‘Principles of Food Sover-

eignty,’’ only one of which can really be construed as

relating to local markets (Vıa Campesina 1996). Even the

Grassroots International/NFFC teaching manual, Food for

Thought and Action, which generally presents a vision of

food sovereignty which is extremely faithful to the original

frame, at times simplifies its complex message down to

local-level control. In an exercise designed to introduce the

concept, participants are instructed to describe their visions

of food sovereignty, which are written on a sheet of

newsprint titled ‘‘What a Locally Controlled Food System

Looks Like’’ (Grassroots International and NFFC 2008a:

9). The implication of this exercise is spelled out clearly in

the title of the fact sheet handed out to participants: ‘‘Food

Sovereignty Is Local Control’’ (Grassroots International

and NFFC 2008a: 13).

The food sovereignty frame is even compatible with

some fairly extreme forms of localism. It is used fre-

quently, for instance, on the Vermont Commons web site

by Rob Williams who advocates Vermont secession from

the US. In one article, Williams (2006) states:

Every time we plant and nurture our own gardens and

greenhouses; build and tend our chicken coops and

root cellars: co-invest, with our neighbors, in a local

CSA (community-supported agriculture) project; or

embrace the ‘‘localvore’’ ethic of eating within a one

hundred mile radius of our homes, we increase our

capacity for ‘‘food sovereignty’’ and ‘‘food security.’’

And we move closer to Vermont independence.

The use of food sovereignty in this way is somewhat

ironic given that the frame was created by a global network

and is intended to highlight the common struggles of food

producers all over the world. It indicates the rapidity with

which reframing can take place when a concept is diffused

to a new context and introduced to a new audience. It also

suggests that, in certain contexts, the food sovereignty

frame could well be tilted to accommodate a form of

defensive localism.

The concept of food sovereignty clearly holds great

potential for bringing attention to social injustice within the

existing food system. As a frame created by some of the

most marginalized people within the global food system, it

facilitates attention to structural discrimination of all kinds.

Thus far, however, this transformative potential has yet to

be fully realized in the US context. This may stem from the

twin tendencies of US organizations either to add food

sovereignty into their repertoire primarily as a way of

framing international issues, or in the domestic context, as

rough shorthand for local control of the food system. This

reframing forfeits much of the frame’s potential for

addressing social injustice in the food system.

Conclusion: ‘‘thirsting for a deeper level

of conversation’’

Whether or not one agrees that the concept of food sov-

ereignty represents an entirely new paradigm from which

to view the global agrifood system (Desmarais 2007;

McMichael 2005), it does seem to have a transformative

potential exceeding that of existing US agrifood frames.

This potential, like the frame itself, is embedded in the

spatial, historical, and political economic context within

which food sovereignty arose. Whereas the earlier frames

derived from food security, including, to an extent, CFS,

uncritically assimilate the prevalent neoliberal economic

orthodoxy, food sovereignty advocates have categorically

rejected it. Whereas the food security frame has paid rel-

atively little attention to social injustice in food and agri-

culture, food sovereignty puts this injustice front and center

by highlighting the demands of indigenous people, women,

and landless farmworkers. Overall, food sovereignty meets

all the criteria of an oppositional frame (Allen et al. 2003)

and ‘‘broadens the imagination of possible politics (Patel

2007: 291)’’ rather than confining itself to the ‘‘politics of

the possible’’ (Guthman 2008).

Like all frames, however, food sovereignty is not static,

but susceptible to constant reframing both intentional and

inadvertent. As the context of framing shifts so does the

frame itself. Food sovereignty as it is used by US organi-

zations is therefore not identical to food sovereignty as

originally framed by Vıa Campesina. The reframing of

food sovereignty for the US context retains the concept’s

strong transformative potential in certain areas while lim-

iting this potential in others. Though the US version of food

sovereignty certainly places more emphasis on ethical

consumption than the original frame, it thus far maintains

much of its original, political orientation. Calls for policy

change were common on most of the web sites that I vis-

ited. In the realm of social justice, the threats to its trans-

formative potential are slightly more real. Food sovereignty

is often framed primarily as an international issue or pri-

marily as a matter of local control, both of which could

Framing transformation 227

123

potentially undermine its powerful focus on social

injustice.

US-based food sovereignty advocates must hit just the

right pitch in the reframing process. A certain level of

reframing is necessary if food sovereignty is to appeal to

Northerners whose primary connection to the food system

is through consumption. Food sovereignty could gain much

relevance to the US context, for instance, if its stance

against structural inequality in the forms of racism and

class power were more directly applied to urban food

justice movements (Schiavoni 2009). Too little reframing

could lead to its use only in reference to peasant livelihoods

and struggles, leaving US citizens in the role of spectators

and funders, and precluding it from becoming the truly

global movement that Vıa Campesina intended. Too much

reframing, on the other hand, could transform it into a

clone of CFS or lead to the exclusions and leveling of

difference associated with an ‘‘unreflexive localism’’ (Du-

Puis and Goodman 2005).

If advocates can avoid heading too far in either of these

two directions, however, the food sovereignty frame could

serve as an important and much needed complement to

existing US agrifood frames. Here it is useful if we return

to Williams’ concepts of alternative and oppositional social

movements. Allen (2004) observes that, if US agrifood

movements are to effect anything more than minor reforms,

they must find a way to articulate both types of action

rather than confining themselves to creating alternatives.

Evidence that food sovereignty could provide this opposi-

tional content can be found on a thoughtful entry from the

Equal Exchange blog entitled ‘‘Fair Trade, Food Sover-

eignty, and the Food Crisis’’ (Robinson 2008). The author

muses:

It’s as if Fair Trade has fallen off the social justice

map. Is Fair Trade just a fad – a naive notion that ‘‘all

a consumer has to do’’ is ‘‘look for the seal’’ and the

world will be a better place?… does the Fair Trade

movement have nothing more to offer consumers and

activists than rivalries between roasters; who makes

more trips to source; who knows their farmer partners

better?… Some of us are thirsting for a deeper level

of conversation…. Why isn’t the Fair Trade move-

ment influencing – and being influenced by – the food

sovereignty movement?

This entry suggests that food sovereignty is already

providing a broader vision for those agrifood activists

engaged in creating alternatives. In Harvey’s language,

food sovereignty may be able to serve as an antidote to a

movement dominated by ‘‘militant particularism.’’ The

‘‘global ambition’’ contained within the original food

sovereignty frame is what made it such a powerful rallying

cry and to its being hailed as a new paradigm. As food

sovereignty gains wider usage within the US context, it is

important that its global ambition remain at the forefront

rather than the search for practical, local applications

leading it to become completely transformed by the

militant particularisms of its new context.

Food sovereignty should not and could not replace the

work being done by CFS advocates. As Kloppenburg and

Hassanein (2006) observe, the alternatives they create,

though contrived within the existing system, can pave the

way to transforming that system. If the right pitch is hit,

however, food sovereignty could provide a powerful

complement to the work of CFS advocates. Bellows and

Hamm (2002: 36) suggest that the predominantly local

focus of CFS is a limitation which can be overcome by

articulating it to the global vision expressed by the right to

food. They say that ‘‘an integration of the two geographic

approaches to food security—local, particular, and dispa-

rate together with global, general, and homogenous—may

provide a more effective strategy for change.’’ I assert that

food sovereignty may be an even more appropriate global

ambition upon which to ground CFS efforts. The food

sovereignty frame includes the right to food but also

mounts an assault on the neoliberalization and industriali-

zation of the food system and furnishes a vision of a more

equitable model. It could provide just the global ambition

that US agrifood movements are lacking.

References

Allen, Patricia. 1999. Reweaving the food security safety net:

Mediating entitlement and entrepreneurship. Agriculture andHuman Values 16(2): 117–129.

Allen, Patricia. 2004. Together at the table: Sustainability andsustenance in the American agrifood system. University Park,

PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Allen, Patricia, and Julie Guthman. 2006. From ‘‘old school’’ to

‘‘farm-to-school’’: Neoliberalization from the ground up. Agri-culture and Human Values 23(4): 401–415.

Allen, Patricia, Margaret FitzSimmons, Michael Goodman, and Keith

Warner. 2003. Shifting plates in the agrifood landscape: The

tectonics of alternative agrifood initiatives in California. Journalof Rural Studies 19(1): 61–75.

Anderson, Molly, and John Cook. 1999. Community food security:

Practice in need of theory? Agriculture and Human Values 16(2):

141–150.

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Author Biography

Madeleine Fairbairn is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the

University of Wisconsin—Madison. Her master’s thesis research

focused on the food sovereignty movement. Her research interests

include alternative agrifood systems, economic development, and

social justice. Her dissertation research focuses on large-scale

farmland acquisitions in the wake of the food and financial crises.

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