The sharing economy: A pathway to sustainability or a nightmarish form of neoliberal capitalism?

Understanding the organization of sharing economy in agri-food systems: evidence from alternative food networks in Valencia

“…which resources are shared and how decisions are collectively taken to control them). This gap is particularly relevant when looking at the wide variety of initiatives taking place in agri-food systems, as frugal forms of sharing economy have potential to play important roles for the inclusion of a broader range of social and economic actors towards sustainable transitions (Heinrichs 2013;Martin 2016).…”

“…These models also display notable differences in terms of their origins, participants' goals and constraints which, to some extent, may be associated to the nature of their organization. Findings inform policy-makers, AFNs' leaders and stakeholders-especially those seeking to support innovative models towards 1 3 and food (or agri-food) systems as well, generally in more frugal forms-i.e., locally based, in small scale and with limited use of information technology-relative to other economic sectors (Heinrichs 2013;Martin 2016). Although still remaining a niche if compared to the mainstream agricultural and food, sector these initiatives have significantly grown worldwide in the last decade (Goodman and Goodman 2009;Mount 2012;Si et al 2015;Migliore et al 2015;Forssell and Lankoski 2015).…”

“…Although still remaining a niche if compared to the mainstream agricultural and food, sector these initiatives have significantly grown worldwide in the last decade (Goodman and Goodman 2009;Mount 2012;Si et al 2015;Migliore et al 2015;Forssell and Lankoski 2015). Commonly studied models of sharing economy in agri-food systems include community gardens (Cohen and Muñoz 2016;Hartl et al 2016), food swapping (Schor et al 2016), food consumer groups and networks (Martin 2016).…”

“…On the other hand, scholars have highlighted risks and adverse impacts that the sharing economy brings about. Risks include, amongst others, a shift towards poorly regulated markets, with consequent issues of taxation avoidance or erosion of labour and trade union rights (Gruzka 2015;Martin 2016), and the perpetuation of non-inclusive practices, for example generating corporate co-optation and socio-cultural exclusion (Richardson 2015;Schor et al 2016). …”

“…contracts, bylaws, formalized tasks) (Pascucci 2010;Migliore et al 2014;Pascucci et al 2016). Many forms of AFNs, but not all, represent examples of sharing economy initiatives (Cohen and Muñoz 2016;Hartl et al 2016;Martin 2016;Schor et al 2016) since they entail coownership and/or co-access to resources, goods and services for joint production and/or consumption. Other forms of AFNs, such as farmers' markets or short food supply chains (Wubben et al 2013), do not involve co-ownership and/or co-access and therefore are not considered in this study as sharing economy initiatives.…”