Community-supported agriculture as food democratic experimentalism: Insights from Germany

Degens, Philipp; Lapschieß, Lukas

doi:10.3389/fsufs.2023.1081125

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Also, democratic values are promoted at the meso-level, in groups that are voluntary, organizations that are regional, and in interactions with other food initiatives at the municipal level. The process of decision-making and participation in the German CSA is conducted in an inclusive manner, and network meetings might be organized as part of the process (Degens & Lapschieß, 2023).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generosity development model of an organic food community in Thailand

Maneesiri,

Phlainoi,

Makarabhirom

et al. 2024

HASSS

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Learning and sharing in a dynamic society causes exchanges and generosity within groups. This qualitative study aimed to explain the generosity development patterns of an organic urban market and a CSA group, and to show the spiritual values in an organic food community reflecting upon the learning mechanism of co-existence. The research employed a qualitative approach using in-depth interviews among 38 participants selected using the snowball technique. The core method was managed using content analysis. Based on the findings, generosity development was defined as a learning process for relationship construction. This process possessed three special characteristics. Firstly, it constituted an individual learning process characterized by high adaptability wherein agents could accept various exchange situations. Secondly, interactions between two agents were noted to reflect every moment to transformative learning in a relationship status. These two case studies satisfied their own exchange together to maintain relationships. Lastly, a middleman’s participation was observed, who facilitated dialogs to be crystal clear for sharing food safety and food security issues. It could be noted that the key success was the learning obtained from transformative individual characteristics to group constructions. The consequence of the learning process produced trading exchange activity and a paradigm shift of all stakeholders towards sympathy, empathy, and generosity. As a result, the investigation of the social interactions between producers and consumers of organic vegetables possessed value in the social interactions occurring through consumption. Furthermore, interaction reflects a learning process leading to co-management and harmonious coexistence among people.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generosity development model of an organic food community in Thailand

Maneesiri,

Phlainoi,

Makarabhirom

et al. 2024

HASSS

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“…A good case in point, presented in Chapter 5, is the contribution rounds practiced by many CSA initiatives in Germany. While the redistribution mechanism thus far has only had a limited impact on the inclusion of lowincome groups (Degens and Lapschieß 2023a), they (unintentionally) risk becoming a form of neoliberal charity (Cropp 2015;. If the CSA model, and with it the contribution rounds, would become more mainstream, they would, at least theoretically, release the state from its responsibility to redistribute income and wealth and thus legitimise the rolling back of the state (Cropp 2015; see also Schmelzer, Vetter, and Vansintjan 2022 albeit not on CSA).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In the following section, I bring insights from across the empirical chapters of this thesis into conversation and nuance this argument by(i) elaborating in what ways and to what extent the CSA movement is political, (ii) outlining the collective dimension of the movement, and (iii) acknowledging and discussing the existing heterogeneity within the movement (for a more in-depth discussion of CSA as a collective, political actor of societal transformations in relation to existing literature see section 8.3).With regard to the political nature of the Solawi network, consensus on certain positions coexists with points of divergence on other topics. As explained in Chapter 3, there is a strong consensus to exclude CSA initiatives and activists adhering to far-right positions (see alsoDegens and Lapschieß (2023a). The chapter points out a number of mechanisms to institutionalise and enforce the incompatibility of CSA with right-wing ideas, thereby shielding the Solawi network from far-right co-optation.…”

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confidence: 99%

Nurturing networks

Guerrero Lara

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The political dimension of community-supported agriculture (CSA), beyond prefiguring alternatives to the conventional, capitalist agri-food system, has remained largely unexplored by the scientific community. The large majority of studies on CSA have explored questions on societal change by investigating the internal dynamics at the initiative level, and detailed explorations of CSA as a social movement as a whole are largely lacking. Therefore, this thesis studied the political dimension of CSA at the level of the network organisation by conceptualising and analysing CSA from a social movement lens. Such a perspective broadened the view beyond local initiatives and shed light on the role that CSA can play as a collective political actor to bring about change towards more environmentally sound and socially just agri-food systems. This study focussed on the German CSA network, the Netzwerk Solidarische Landwirtschaft, as the main case study and asked to what extent and in what ways CSA networks form and act as a collective, political actor of societal transformation. To answer this question, several chapters of this thesis drew on different strands of social movement studies: Chapter 3 used the concept of boundary work to shed light on the process through which CSA networks become a collective actor. Subsequently, drawing on literature on political advocacy, Chapter 4 analysed how CSA networks act via advocacy work to induce change within capitalist agri-food systems. Building on the literature on coalition building, Chapter 5 then investigated how political action can be broadened by systematically analysing the potential of entering a coalition between the CSA and degrowth movements. Finally, Chapter 6 examined the transformation of agri-food systems more broadly through the lens of degrowth literature and identified pertinent avenues for future research. Taken together, these chapters generate novel insights and positions on the German CSA network as a collective, yet heterogenous actor. Adopting a social movement lens was instrumental for exploring how CSA initiatives with differing values, ways of organising, and political goals are positioned towards each other, including how tensions and factionalism arise within the movement and how they are mitigated. Furthermore, this thesis showed that the German CSA network, apart from an outspoken distancing from the far-right, welcomes diversity; a pragmatic decision that has allowed the movement to grow and spread within different circles. The heterogeneity of the German CSA network is also reflected in its politics; while the network engages predominantly in a prefigurative politics, different understandings of what it means to be political co-exist within the movement. In addition, it is politicised to different extents and the extent to which the movement wants to be political remains internally contested and debated. While further politicisation is necessary to support societal transformation processes, for a social movement that consists of heterogenous initiatives, this process is complex and problem-ridden. In sum, this thesis gave a nuanced view of the ways in which CSA networks can be understood as political and offered important insights into how a common identity, political strategies, claims, and struggles are negotiated and enacted.

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Selective, reciprocal and quiet: lessons from rural queer empowerment in community-supported agriculture

Raj

2024

Agric Hum Values

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Rural queer studies, viewed through the lens of relational agriculture, offer critiques of heteropatriarchal norms in farming and highlight strategies used by queer farmers to manoeuvre discrimination and thrive in rural areas. This paper responds to recent calls for further scrutiny of the experiences of gender and sexually underrepresented groups in community-supported agriculture (CSA). It investigates the empowerment of rural queer people in CSA Guadiana, South Portugal, through the experiences of 12 queer members. I collected data through participant observation, semi-structured interviews and a focus group and analysed them through open coding, followed by focused coding. Results indicate that CSA Guadiana, despite not originally designed for this purpose, facilitates various forms of empowerment and active engagement among queer members, particularly influenced by the leadership of queer producers and recurrent gatherings in queer-owned farmland. Three key lessons of queer empowerment in CSA Guadiana emerge from the analysis and contribute to debates on the politics of recognition, queer community action and visibility in the rural context: (i) self-confidence to perform queerness may be restricted to a selective rural community; (ii) partnerships between producers and co-producers may enable reciprocal queer empowerment; and (iii) queer leadership in agri-food community action may quietly represent gender and sexual diversity in the countryside. These findings offer the rural queer literature novel insights into the complexities, contradictions and limitations of empowerment experienced by queer farmers, artisanal food producers and consumers in a rural CSA.

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Community-supported agriculture as food democratic experimentalism: Insights from Germany

Cited by 3 publications

References 57 publications

Generosity development model of an organic food community in Thailand

Generosity development model of an organic food community in Thailand

Nurturing networks

Selective, reciprocal and quiet: lessons from rural queer empowerment in community-supported agriculture

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