Hail the Snail: Hegemonic Struggles in the Slow Food Movement

Abstract

This paper explores how new institutional fields are established and extended. We argue that they are created by social movements engaging in hegemonic struggles and which develop social movement strategies, articulate discourses and construct nodal points. We examine how this process played out during the creation and development of the Slow Food movement. We argue that the positioning of Slow Food as a new field was based particularly on using multiple strategies, increasing the stock of floating signifiers, and abstracting the nodal points used. This mobilized new actors and enabled a more extensive collective identity which allowed the movement to progress, extend, and elevate the field of Slow Food. The field of Slow Food was transformed from appealing only to gastronomes to becoming a broader field that encompassed social justice activists and environmentalists. This study contributes to the existing literature on field formation, the role of social movements in this process, and political dynamics within social movements. We focus on the importance of hegemony in the institutional processes around field formation by drawing out how Slow Food created a field through the forging of hegemonic links among a range of disparate actors.

A Transnational Agri-Food System for Whom? The Struggle for Hegemony at Rio+20

“…For Laclau and Mouffe (2001), the articulations of nodal points and floating signifiers are central to hegemony formation. The collective identity emerges from the articulation and re-articulation of these discursive elements (Bommel & Spicer, 2011). Here, for example, the articulation of food is sufficiently vague and empty to act as a nodal point, which, in neo-Gramscian discourse theory plays an important role in forging alliances between hitherto disconnected discourses and institutional actors (Bommel & Spicer, 2011;Dellagnelo et al, 2014).…”

“…The collective identity emerges from the articulation and re-articulation of these discursive elements (Bommel & Spicer, 2011). Here, for example, the articulation of food is sufficiently vague and empty to act as a nodal point, which, in neo-Gramscian discourse theory plays an important role in forging alliances between hitherto disconnected discourses and institutional actors (Bommel & Spicer, 2011;Dellagnelo et al, 2014). Thus, emptiness is "revealed a s an essential quality of the nodal point, as an important condition of possibility for its hegemonic success" (Howarth & Stavrakakis, 2000, p. 9).…”

“…Although some researchers have sought to understand how new organizational fields are created (Davis, McAdam, Scott, & Zald, 2005;DiMaggio, 1991;Hardy & Maguire, 2010;Peci, Vieira, & Clegg, 2009), these studies have, however, neglected to show how social movements achieve their goals through their engagement in hegemonic struggles (Böhm, Spicer, & Fleming, 2008;Bommel & Spicer, 2011;Contu, Palpacuer, & Balas, 2013).…”

“…Transnational corporations have no place in trade agreements or our food systems!" Recent studies using the neo-Gramscian framework have sought to examine the relationship and the boundaries between the private sector, the state, and civil society, exploring the role each of these may play in different hegemonic and counterhegemonic processes that are socially constructed through political maneuvering (Böhm et al, 2008;Bommel & Spicer, 2011;Contu et al, 2013;Levy, 2008). However, these studies offer little insight into the different ways in which civil society actors operate at local and international level to resist or sustain hegemonic formations.…”

“…However, these studies offer little insight into the different ways in which civil society actors operate at local and international level to resist or sustain hegemonic formations. In other words, civil society is still a "black box" in terms of neo-Gramscian studies given that different civil society actors play different political roles, something that has not been explained or explored in detail as yet from this particular theoretical angle (Bommel & Spicer, 2011;Dellagnelo, Böhm, & Mendonça, 2014). …”