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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: [email protected]
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
123
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.
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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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