Politics of Knowledge and Innovation in Alternative Food Networks: Rethinking producer-consumer relations for a transformative food politics

Microsoft Teams

Presenter

Zühre Aksoy, Bogazici University, Department of Political Science and International Relations Istanbul, Turkey

Chair

Professor Theo Papaioannou, Professor of Politics, Innovation and Development at The Open University

The growing number of alternative food networks (AFNs) in both the global North and the South are an important part of the efforts to redefine politics of food in an era of neoliberalisation of agriculture.

While these networks display diverse understandings of what food justice entails, many prioritize the establishment of a direct relation between producers and consumers, with the aim to provide healthy, quality and affordable food for their members, while supporting small farmers who engage in sustainable agricultural production. The focus of this paper will be on alternative food networks in Istanbul, Turkey, and how they relate to producers. The paper will address the following questions:

• How/to what extent does knowledge exchange about food occur between AFN members and producers?
• Whether/In what ways does this exchange of knowledge play a role in redefining producer-consumer relations, and fostering innovation for a potentially transformative food politics?
• Based on open-ended, in-depth interviews with AFN members in Istanbul and producers in different parts of Anatolia they purchase from, the paper aims to contribute to the debate on politics of knowledge and innovation, and the possibilities that AFNs provide and the constraints they face in redefining rural-urban relations.

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