Enclaves of activism and taste: Consumer cooperatives in Poland as alternative food networks

Abstract

Alternative Food Network (AFN) is a broad term encompassing many initiatives connected by the aim to build an alternative to globalized industrial food production and distribution. AFN is a term that covers many ways of connecting producers and consumers on the local level, e.g. community supported agriculture (CSA), farmer markets or food cooperatives. In this article, the authors analyse the newly established consumer cooperatives all over Poland, as a local form of alternative food network. The authors describe the specific character of this type of AFN, both from the consumers' and producers' point of view, and reflect on the issue of how specific social and historical background influence their development. The authors also discuss the "enclave" character of the cooperatives, that is suggested to be specific to the Polish type of AFN. The cooperatives studied varied considerably, so the authors propose two distinct types: activist and consumeroriented. Polish food cooperatives possess characteristics that the authors have decided to label with a common term of "enclave" character.

Are There Local Versions of Sustainability? Food Networks in the Semi-Periphery

“…An AFN therefore works as a more disparate network, but one strongly based on human actants. This also helps to explain how novel networks are so effective in "colonising" different socio-economic contexts with their ideas and values and becoming the medium for a specific cultural capital and class habitus [11,34,35].…”

“…New AFNs, meanwhile, grow out of entirely different motivations and respond to entirely different problems, meaning that they are part of the lifestyles of different social groups with a distinct economic, geographical, and cultural setting. The resultant danger is that access to quality food-local, seasonal, fresh, ethical, and sustainable-is generally limited to people with high economic and cultural capital [34].…”

Social contexts of food exclusion

“…Food is an important social and cultural phenomenon and has long been subject to anthropological analysis, including works by such authors as Claude Lévi-Strauss (1966, 1969 and Mary Douglas (1966Douglas ( , 1972. However, it is only recently that it has attracted considerable attention from other social researchers (Johnston, Rodney and Szabo 2012;Kopczyńska 2013;Slocum 2013;Sutton 2013;Bachórz 2014;Bilewicz and Śpiewak 2015;Domański et al 2015).…”

Bridging Food Studies

“…The third dynamic observed in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe refers to the idea of rural area development; in the case of food it is based on attempts at localisation and implanting (ex. Bilewicz, Śpiewak 2015). Those three interpermeating dynamics cause food production and consumption to appear to be a complicated combination.…”

“…A review of literature on the subject and research shows that analysis of attitudes, values, and the influence of urban consumers is an unsurveyed area, besides not numerous exceptions (ex. Bilewicz, Śpiewak 2015). Stewart Lockie has even created a special concept, naming the consumers the invisible mouth, because they are treated only through their decisions concerning purchasing, who are important only for a moment: on shelves in a store or on the green market (Lockie 2002).…”