This is an Open Access document downloaded from ORCA, Cardiff University's institutional repository: http://orca.cf.ac.uk/104340/ This is the author’s version of a work that was submitted to / accepted for publication. Citation for final published version: Moragues Faus, Ana and Marsden, Terry 2017. The political ecology of food: Carving 'spaces of possibility' in a new research agenda. Journal of Rural Studies 55 , pp. 275-288. 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.08.016 file Publishers page: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.08.016 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.08.016> Please note: Changes made as a result of publishing processes such as copy-editing, formatting and page numbers may not be reflected in this version. For the definitive version of this publication, please refer to the published source. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite this paper. This version is being made available in accordance with publisher policies. See http://orca.cf.ac.uk/policies.html for usage policies. Copyright and moral rights for publications made available in ORCA are retained by the copyright holders. The political ecology of food: carving spaces of possibility in a new research agenda Moragues-Faus Ana and Marsden Terry Cite as: Moragues-Faus A. and Marsden, T. 2017 The political ecology of food: carving Journal of Rural Studies (In press) spaces of possibility in a new research agenda Abstract: In times of austerity and global environmental change, recent crises related to food (in)securities and (un)sustainabilities urge us to reposition agri-food research. We argue that there is an opportunity to develop a more critical food scholarship by explicitly integrating political ecology approaches. For this purpose, the paper outlines major elements in the extensive political ecology scholarship to guide a critical review of some central trends in food research, as well as considering the contribution to date of food studies to political ecology perspectives. This exercise allows us to identify key avenues of convergence between food studies and political ecology frameworks that constitute three conceptual building blocks of a revised critical food scholarship: understanding place-based socio-natures; addressing the politics of scale and inequality; and co- producing knowledge and change. These coordinates are used to analyse two emergent potential spaces of possibility, embodied in the emergence of cities as food policy actors and the rise of the Food Sovereignty movement. We conclude by exploring how a critical food scholarship could inform an inclusive reframing to produce the grounds of possibility for a more socially and ecologically diverse food system. Keywords: political ecology, food studies, food security, sustainability, socio-natures, food movements 1. Introduction: repositioning food crisis in unruly capitalism 1 The agri-food scholarship has evolved over the past twenty years from a predominant focus on production to include not only consumption dynamics, but a much more complex landscape of actors, processes and theories (Goodman, 1999; Marsden et al., 1996; Winter, 2003b). Nevertheless, by and large, during a prolonged period of plenty- when food supplies and provision seemed to be largely solved for the developed countries at least (from the 1980s through to the food crisis of 2007-2008)- much research on food has been disconnected from its political and/or ecological implications. We wish to argue in this paper that it is now time to acknowledge how the period since 2007 represents a new rupture and a more volatile context for agri-food scholarship, whereby the explosion of interest in food studies which preceded it requires a critical re-examination and the development of new insights. The combined food, financial and fiscal global crisis unleashed in 2007 represents a significant rupture with the pasti. In most countries, the gap between rich and poor is at its highest level in the last 30 years (OECD, 2015). Since the crisis, the rise of global levels of inequality has accelerated, fuelled by increasing unemployment and the politics of austerity which have weakened the cushioning effect of redistributive policies (ibid). In European countries, the associated dismantling of the welfare state has created increases in food and energy poverty, partly coming into the light in the form of food bank queues. It is important to recognise that this new terrain contains policy and scientific reactions which hold implications for the agri-food research agenda. First, the crisis has led to a broad renaissance of (neo) productivist responses to the wider problems of global food and nutritional security (see for example Royal Society, 2009; HOC, 2014; Silvasti, 2015), that is, an integration of food security concerns into a wider neoliberal agenda that frames hunger as a technical problem that must be addressed 2 through increased productivity and the liberalisation of trade (Moragues-Faus, 2017a). This energising bio-scientists and economists to prospectivelyapproach assess to feed the the globalisation world is of the food security problems in an aggregated sense. At the same time, and driven by a more domestic social and food welfare concern, we see a proliferation of civil society initiatives (such as city food movements and local community initiatives) which are attempting to build more radical and place-based (see Marsden and Morley, 2014; Blay-Palmer etalternatives al., 2013). toAs the some dominant have noted food (Goodman regime et al., 2013), research on these food alternatives has been instrumental in generating a rich set of case studies, often celebratory, which would benefit from linking to broader conceptual frameworks in order to enlighten theoretical but also practical transitions towards sustainability in this new period. In reality, separations between these alternative and conventional food networks have proven sterile since they are indeed relational to one another and conforming a hybrid food system (Sonnino and Marsden, 2006). Invariably, this new food landscape, unleashed since 2007, holds important implications for the current and future pathways of the agri-food scholarship, in that it specifically re-questions the central role of the politics of place and nature in resolving the current food crisis. Critical perspectives now have important contributions to make in these new conditions and at this particular juncture. Food studies would now benefit from a re- problematization of place and nature and a more politically sensitive approach to the asymmetrical character of nature-social relationships. Building on recent work on food, we call for a more critical and grounded relational approach where food acts as a vehicle and central heuristic device for understanding crises and their uneven dynamics 3 at different spatial scales. This paper aims to contribute to the development of a more engaged, ecologically attuned and critical food scholarship. Central to this aim, we argue, is to re-introduce a re-freshed political ecology dimension into this scholarship that recognizes the subjectivity of current understandings of environmental challenges and their potential responses . Taking OBrien,-based explorationsRobbins to explain definition linkages of inpolitical the conditionecology PE and as change empirical, of social/environmental research systems, with explicit consideration of 391), we aim to re-appraise some of the key trends in the currentrelations food of power studies : literature. PE not only stresses the political dimension of socio- ecological systems, but also how our knowledge, and related knowledge production processes, shape and are shaped by political and economic processes (Forsyth, 2003; Robbins, 2012). Consequently, PE serves as a useful lens to expose the socio-natural processes that (re)produce inequalities, exclusion and injustice between people and places(Brenner, 2009; Hubbard et al., 2002) which underpin the current geography of food insecurity. Such a revised perspec tive is further motivated by the recent and interdependent (un)sustainaibilities,nexus crises e.g. financial, which fiscalurge usand to energy rethink closelyresearch related agendas to food committed insecurities to an and emancipatory politics, promoting social change and the development of new spaces of hope and possibility (Blomley, 2006; Harvey, 2000). As Neil Smith(2015) capital implosion and global uprisings that accompanied it opened up a possibilitystated, s of a future. This future builds upon economic alternatives thatand diverseshould experimentalno longer be ecosystemsregarded as ofresidual norms, practices, practices ….and Theytrajectories are valuable the seed banks, if you will, of – 4 (Sheppard, 2015:1129). Building these ecosystemsalternatives requiresto globalizing a critical capitalism food scholarship which attempts to (Tornaghi, 2014:14). Inspired also by Gibson-politicize, empower (2006)and identify reflections alternatives on the role of academics in a more heterodox capitalism,Grahams a re- po practices of thinking economy and liticization of food would then require new ethical becoming different kinds of economic beings p. xxviii. To address and contribute to these perspectives, in section two we outline key elements in the extensive political ecology scholarship and related contributions to the political ecology of food. Section three presents a succinct critical review of some central trends in food research. Inevitably, and given the rapid expansion of