The place of food: mapping out the ‘local’ in local food systems

TLDR

Local food system movements challenge globalizing food systems, positioning the place of food as a central yet quiet focus of emerging discourses. The paper aims to map and analyze the concept of “place” (including “local” and “community”) within local food systems literature, linking it to geographic spatial discussions. The study highlights the complexity and potential of place-related concepts, arguing for an emplaced view of food systems while urging careful definition and recognition of local particularities and global interconnections.

Abstract

‘Local food systems’ movements, practices, and writings pose increasingly visible structures of resistance and counter-pressure to conventional globalizing food systems. The place of food seems to be the quiet centre of the discourses emerging with these movements. The purpose of this paper is to identify issues of ‘place’, which are variously described as the ‘local’and ‘community’ in the local food systems literature, and to do so in conjunction with the geographic discussion focused on questions and meanings around these spatial concepts. I see raising the profile of questions, complexity and potential of these concepts as an important role and challenge for the scholar-advocate in the realm of local food systems, and for geographers sorting through them. Both literatures benefit from such a foray. The paper concludes, following a ‘cautiously normative’ tone, that there is strong argument for emplacing our food systems, while simultaneously calling for careful circumspection and greater clarity regarding how we delineate and understand the ‘local’. Being conscious of the constructed nature of the ‘local’, ‘community’ and ‘place’ means seeing the importance of local social, cultural and ecological particularity in our everyday worlds, while also recognizing that we are reflexively and dialectially tied to many and diverse locals around the world.