Jose Luis Vivero Pol | UCLouvain (University of Louvain) (original) (raw)
Books by Jose Luis Vivero Pol
La perspectiva de derechos en América Latina tiene sus raíces en los procesos de construcción de ... more La perspectiva de derechos en América Latina tiene sus raíces en los procesos de construcción de los Estados-Nación de la región, previos incluso a la etapa independentista que daría forma a las nuevas repúblicas latinoamericanas. Una perspectiva liberal de los derechos humanos tuvo una temprana impronta en la región gracias a las corrientes intelectuales europeas, muy influidas por el pensamiento de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Éstas no sólo alimentaron el ideario independentista a fines del siglo XVIII, sino también la construcción de las estructuras políticas latinoamericanas post-independencia.
La crisis alimentaria mundial más reciente ha puesto de manifiesto la incapacidad del derecho a l... more La crisis alimentaria mundial más reciente ha puesto de manifiesto la incapacidad del derecho a la alimentación para atender y prevenir este tipo de situaciones. Ahora es el momento hacer más fuerte y eficaz este derecho, pasando de directrices de cumplimiento voluntario a leyes vinculantes. Como todos sabemos, no hace mucho tiempo, la FAO patrocinó la creación de directrices para el cumplimiento del derecho a la alimentación. Su publicación fue ampliamente celebrada, y se consideró que era el texto más detallado y completo que hubiera existido para hacer que este derecho sea una realidad para millones de personas que padecen hambre. No hay duda de que estas directrices proporcionan un marco exhaustivo para la acción y ofrecen una cobertura detallada de los temas importantes. Sin embargo, las nuevas realidades que han surgido en los últimos años, tal vez con demasiada rapidez y de forma inesperada, han puesto de manifiesto la necesidad de una regulación más completa del derecho a la alimentación que la proporcionada por las directrices. Idealmente, por tanto, su texto debería ser modificado y actualizado.
El propósito de este libro es indicar algunas áreas y temas que tendrán un gran impacto en los próximos años en relación con la aplicación del derecho a la seguridad alimentaria y a los alimentos y que actualmente disponen de escasa o nula regulación. Estos son los nuevos retos a los que va a enfrentarse el derecho a la alimentación en el siglo XXI...
Papers by Jose Luis Vivero Pol
Papeles de relaciones ecosociales y cambio global, 2019
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Oct 6, 2016
Social Science Research Network, 2017
Commons and food are experiencing a revival in recent years and yet the links between both are al... more Commons and food are experiencing a revival in recent years and yet the links between both are almost absent in academic and political discourses. Commons are often portrayed as historical and yet innovative governing mechanisms that can challenge the State-Market hegemony. On the other side, food is both a relevant agent of change and a major driver of planetary destruction, being thus cause and solution to multiple crises that affect humankind. Departing from the commodification of food as one root cause of the broken global food system, this text firstly situates and discusses the different schools of thought (or epistemologies) that have addressed the private/public, commodity/commons nature of goods in general, and then explores how those schools have considered food in particular. To do so, the author has defined five epistemologies, four academic (economic, legal, historical and political) and one non-academic (grassroots activists). The analysis highlights how those epistemologies have yielded incommensurable understandings and conflicting vocabularies, hence creating confusion in the socio-political realm and even rejection around the idea of food being considered as a commons. The economic epistemic regard has reigned over the others by applying an approach to commons, public and private goods that is theoretical, reductionist and ontological instead of phenomenological, therefore preventing or obscuring other scholarly or practical understanding of commons. When applied to food, the iron law of economics dictated that food, a private good based on rivalry and excludability, shall be better allocated through market mechanisms with absolute proprietary rights and valued as a pure commodity. This reductionist view collides with the plurality of meanings of food in different societies, civilisations and historical periods, as other schools of thought indicate. The author uses diverse epistemic tools to reconstruct food as a commons, based on its essentiality to human beings and societies and the customary and contemporary praxis to produce, consume and govern food collectively through non-market mechanisms for more than 2000 centuries. As commoning has instituting power to create different political and legal frameworks, if food is valued differently the entire architecture of the global food system would change, as the grassroots activist school claims. Re-commoning food defies the legal and political scaffoldings that sustain the hegemony of market and state decision-makers over eaters and food producers and informs sustainable forms of food production (agro-ecology), new collective practices of governance (food democracies) and alternative policies to regain control over the food system (food sovereignty). Food as a commons is an agent of change with transformative power, no matter what economists say.
arXiv (Cornell University), Mar 23, 2023
This Analysis presents a recently developed food system indicator framework and holistic monitori... more This Analysis presents a recently developed food system indicator framework and holistic monitoring architecture to track food system transformation towards global development, health and sustainability goals. Five themes are considered: (1) diets, nutrition and health; (2) environment, natural resources and production; (3) livelihoods, poverty and equity; (4) governance; and (5) resilience. Each theme is divided into three to five indicator domains, and indicators were selected to reflect each domain through a consultative process. In total, 50 indicators were selected, with at least one indicator available for every domain. Harmonized data of these 50 indicators provide a baseline assessment of the world's food systems. We show that every country can claim positive outcomes in some parts of food systems, but none are among the highest ranked across all domains. Furthermore, some indicators are independent of national income, and each highlights a specific aspiration for healthy, sustainable and just food systems. The Food Systems Countdown Initiative will track food systems annually to 2030, amending the framework as new indicators or better data emerge. Food systems fundamentally shape lives, well-being and human and planetary health, and they are central to tackling some of the most pressing global challenges of our time 1. The United Nations (UN) held its first-ever Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) in 2021, which demonstrated the interconnectedness of food systems with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and provided a space for countries to develop national pathways towards food system transformation. Food systems also featured prominently at the 26th and 27th UN Climate Change
Nature Sustainability
Sustainable agrifood systems are critical to averting climate-driven social and ecological disast... more Sustainable agrifood systems are critical to averting climate-driven social and ecological disasters, overcoming the growth paradigm and redefining the interactions of humanity and nature in the twenty-first century. This Perspective describes an agenda and examples for comprehensive agrifood system redesign according to principles of sufficiency, regeneration, distribution, commons and care. This redesign should be supported by coordinated education and research efforts that do not simply replicate dominant discourses on food system sustainability but point towards a post-growth world in which agroecological life processes support healthy communities rather than serving as inputs for the relentless pursuit of economic growth.
Hunger is needlessly killing millions of our fellow humans, including 2.6 million young children ... more Hunger is needlessly killing millions of our fellow humans, including 2.6 million young children every year. It condemns many others to life-long exposure to illness and social exclusion. This paper argues that a binding Food Treaty would create an appropriate framework to work together towards a food secure world. The eradication of hunger no later than 2025 would be the main objective, and fighting against obesity could also be considered. Within the treaty framework, those governments that are genuinely determined to end hunger (a coalition of the willing) could commit themselves to mutually-agreed binding goals, strategies and predictable funding. The paper presents the rationale to substantiate the treaty, as well as objectives, provisions and a possible route map for the process. This path shall involve civil society participation and include a Global Anti-Hunger Campaign during the negotiation process and beyond to build a strong constituency of public support for hunger eradication.
"La crisis alimentaria mundial más reciente ha puesto de manifie... more "La crisis alimentaria mundial más reciente ha puesto de manifiesto la incapacidad del derecho a la alimentación para atender y prevenir este tipo de situaciones. Ahora es el momento hacer más fuerte y eficaz este derecho, pasando de directrices de cumplimiento voluntario a leyes vinculantes. Como todos sabemos, no hace mucho tiempo, la FAO patrocinó la creación de directrices para el cumplimiento del derecho a la alimentación. Su publicación fue ampliamente celebrada, y se consideró que era el texto más detallado y completo que hubiera existido para hacer que este derecho sea una realidad para millones de personas que padecen hambre. No hay duda de que estas directrices proporcionan un marco exhaustivo para la acción y ofrecen una cobertura detallada de los temas importantes. Sin embargo, las nuevas realidades que han surgido en los últimos años, tal vez con demasiada rapidez y de forma inesperada, han puesto de manifiesto la necesidad de una regulación más completa del derecho a la alimentación que la proporcionada por las directrices. Idealmente, por tanto, su texto debería ser modificado y actualizado. El propósito de este libro es indicar algunas áreas y temas que tendrán un gran impacto en los próximos años en relación con la aplicación del derecho a la seguridad alimentaria y a los alimentos y que actualmente disponen de escasa o nula regulación. Estos son los nuevos retos a los que va a enfrentarse el derecho a la alimentación en el siglo XXI... "
Se destaca la importancia de la soberania nacional como aspecto fundamental de la soberania nacio... more Se destaca la importancia de la soberania nacional como aspecto fundamental de la soberania nacional, muy ligado a la seguridad nacional y a la garantia de los derechos de los ciudadanos. Y se desmonta la consideracion exclusiva de los alimentos como un bien privado, tan propia del sistema capitalista industrial, para proponer su consideracion como bien publico multidimensional (necesidad, derecho, cultura y comercio) y que debe ser gobernado de manera diferente, no exclusivamente por leyes de mercado. El Estado podria proporcionar alimentos gratis para todos, lo alimentario ha de tener su propio tratado internacional fuera de la OMC y hay que prohibir la especulacion financiera con un bien esencial.
LPTransition (lptransition.uclouvain.be) is a pluri-disciplinary, trans-sectorial and community-d... more LPTransition (lptransition.uclouvain.be) is a pluri-disciplinary, trans-sectorial and community-driven scientific research platform, created in 2015. Its specific purpose is to support existing research projects at the Universite catholique de Louvain on ecological and social transition with a transdisciplinary perspective (that is, in close cooperation with social partners and stemming from the social innovations that these actors initiate). Our vision is that production, translation and dissemination of knowledge for social and ecological transition requires close partnerships between researchers and practitioners during the entire research process. The end goal of such partnerships is to produce both better science and more socially robust knowledge. This paper will look back at and reflect on the platform’s first year of work with transition movements in the agri-food system. More in particular, we will evaluate and discuss three types of projects currently supported by the plat...
This policy document examines the application of social knowledge economy principles and the comm... more This policy document examines the application of social knowledge economy principles and the commons narrative to the primary sector (agriculture) of the economy. The rationale of the whole document is based on the new narrative that considers food as a commons and not purely as a commodity. A commons describe a specific resource that is owned and managed in common, shared and beneficial for all members of a community (Sandel, 2009). Commons shall not be enclosed by privatization, legislation, pricing or physical barriers. Moreover, commons can be provided by private, state means and self-regulated collective actions, and its property can be private, public or mixed. Food thus could perfectly be considered as a commons, as this paper seeks to prove. Along those lines, food and nutrition security and food sovereignty should also be considered as Global Public Goods 2 that are beneficial to all human beings and thus we all need to be involved in their governance and maintenance. The c...
What is the role of social learning inside local food networks aiming at a transition to a sustai... more What is the role of social learning inside local food networks aiming at a transition to a sustainable food system? In the project Food4Sustainability a research consortium sets out to investigate the network characteristics and learning processes occurring in these local food networks in Belgium. A conceptual framework was developed reflecting the transdisciplinarity of the consortium and aimed at analysing the different levels of the network. The hypothesis in the first part of the project is the importance of the contribution of converging strategic policy beliefs to a collaborative atmosphere amongst the different actors in the local food network. This was assessed by a social network analysis through a series of semi-structured interviews with key players in the local food network.status: publishe
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, only one vision has become hegemonic worldwide. The marginaliz... more Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, only one vision has become hegemonic worldwide. The marginalization of any alternative to the single thought, also known as the end of history (Fukuyama, 1989; IUC, 2009), has quickly generated what is known as neoliberalism, the new form of hybridization between public sovereignty and private corporations that has come to dominate contemporary structures of global governance (Harvey, 2007). This arrangement, with a crucial role for the military industrial complex, has not only produced new forms of world disorders. It has also disrupted the fundamental understanding of modernity, that of a neat distinction between a public and a private sector. The new hybrid corporate power, the current form of capital accumulation, now runs the world within a logic of global sovereignty that defeats every form of democratic control. Every single aspect of human life has been attracted within this bio-political machinery so that the very human being is now commodified like every other aspect of nature. The most tangible manifestation of this process is in the domain of two of the fundamental building blocks of human life: water and food. These two essential components of life are now almost entirely transformed into commodities, leading to forms of domination and subordination that are difficult to overestimate. The consequences of the current extractive system are so deep as to produce a new geological era, the so-called Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2006; Purdy, 2015) or Capitalocene (Moore, 2017), which is likely to destroy the very conditions of life and human civilization (Brown, 2008; Capra and Mattei, 2015). It is as a reaction to the massive abuses visited upon nature and community by the imperatives of reproduction of the dominant structure of power that the commons have re-emerged. This notion has the ambition to ground a counter-narrative and a political and institutional organization capable of shifting our pattern of development from an extractive and individual into a generative and collective mode. It is not, however, a new notion, as the commons have long constituted one way to organize and govern the relationship between society and nature resources (
La perspectiva de derechos en América Latina tiene sus raíces en los procesos de construcción de ... more La perspectiva de derechos en América Latina tiene sus raíces en los procesos de construcción de los Estados-Nación de la región, previos incluso a la etapa independentista que daría forma a las nuevas repúblicas latinoamericanas. Una perspectiva liberal de los derechos humanos tuvo una temprana impronta en la región gracias a las corrientes intelectuales europeas, muy influidas por el pensamiento de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Éstas no sólo alimentaron el ideario independentista a fines del siglo XVIII, sino también la construcción de las estructuras políticas latinoamericanas post-independencia.
La crisis alimentaria mundial más reciente ha puesto de manifiesto la incapacidad del derecho a l... more La crisis alimentaria mundial más reciente ha puesto de manifiesto la incapacidad del derecho a la alimentación para atender y prevenir este tipo de situaciones. Ahora es el momento hacer más fuerte y eficaz este derecho, pasando de directrices de cumplimiento voluntario a leyes vinculantes. Como todos sabemos, no hace mucho tiempo, la FAO patrocinó la creación de directrices para el cumplimiento del derecho a la alimentación. Su publicación fue ampliamente celebrada, y se consideró que era el texto más detallado y completo que hubiera existido para hacer que este derecho sea una realidad para millones de personas que padecen hambre. No hay duda de que estas directrices proporcionan un marco exhaustivo para la acción y ofrecen una cobertura detallada de los temas importantes. Sin embargo, las nuevas realidades que han surgido en los últimos años, tal vez con demasiada rapidez y de forma inesperada, han puesto de manifiesto la necesidad de una regulación más completa del derecho a la alimentación que la proporcionada por las directrices. Idealmente, por tanto, su texto debería ser modificado y actualizado.
El propósito de este libro es indicar algunas áreas y temas que tendrán un gran impacto en los próximos años en relación con la aplicación del derecho a la seguridad alimentaria y a los alimentos y que actualmente disponen de escasa o nula regulación. Estos son los nuevos retos a los que va a enfrentarse el derecho a la alimentación en el siglo XXI...
Papeles de relaciones ecosociales y cambio global, 2019
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Oct 6, 2016
Social Science Research Network, 2017
Commons and food are experiencing a revival in recent years and yet the links between both are al... more Commons and food are experiencing a revival in recent years and yet the links between both are almost absent in academic and political discourses. Commons are often portrayed as historical and yet innovative governing mechanisms that can challenge the State-Market hegemony. On the other side, food is both a relevant agent of change and a major driver of planetary destruction, being thus cause and solution to multiple crises that affect humankind. Departing from the commodification of food as one root cause of the broken global food system, this text firstly situates and discusses the different schools of thought (or epistemologies) that have addressed the private/public, commodity/commons nature of goods in general, and then explores how those schools have considered food in particular. To do so, the author has defined five epistemologies, four academic (economic, legal, historical and political) and one non-academic (grassroots activists). The analysis highlights how those epistemologies have yielded incommensurable understandings and conflicting vocabularies, hence creating confusion in the socio-political realm and even rejection around the idea of food being considered as a commons. The economic epistemic regard has reigned over the others by applying an approach to commons, public and private goods that is theoretical, reductionist and ontological instead of phenomenological, therefore preventing or obscuring other scholarly or practical understanding of commons. When applied to food, the iron law of economics dictated that food, a private good based on rivalry and excludability, shall be better allocated through market mechanisms with absolute proprietary rights and valued as a pure commodity. This reductionist view collides with the plurality of meanings of food in different societies, civilisations and historical periods, as other schools of thought indicate. The author uses diverse epistemic tools to reconstruct food as a commons, based on its essentiality to human beings and societies and the customary and contemporary praxis to produce, consume and govern food collectively through non-market mechanisms for more than 2000 centuries. As commoning has instituting power to create different political and legal frameworks, if food is valued differently the entire architecture of the global food system would change, as the grassroots activist school claims. Re-commoning food defies the legal and political scaffoldings that sustain the hegemony of market and state decision-makers over eaters and food producers and informs sustainable forms of food production (agro-ecology), new collective practices of governance (food democracies) and alternative policies to regain control over the food system (food sovereignty). Food as a commons is an agent of change with transformative power, no matter what economists say.
arXiv (Cornell University), Mar 23, 2023
This Analysis presents a recently developed food system indicator framework and holistic monitori... more This Analysis presents a recently developed food system indicator framework and holistic monitoring architecture to track food system transformation towards global development, health and sustainability goals. Five themes are considered: (1) diets, nutrition and health; (2) environment, natural resources and production; (3) livelihoods, poverty and equity; (4) governance; and (5) resilience. Each theme is divided into three to five indicator domains, and indicators were selected to reflect each domain through a consultative process. In total, 50 indicators were selected, with at least one indicator available for every domain. Harmonized data of these 50 indicators provide a baseline assessment of the world's food systems. We show that every country can claim positive outcomes in some parts of food systems, but none are among the highest ranked across all domains. Furthermore, some indicators are independent of national income, and each highlights a specific aspiration for healthy, sustainable and just food systems. The Food Systems Countdown Initiative will track food systems annually to 2030, amending the framework as new indicators or better data emerge. Food systems fundamentally shape lives, well-being and human and planetary health, and they are central to tackling some of the most pressing global challenges of our time 1. The United Nations (UN) held its first-ever Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) in 2021, which demonstrated the interconnectedness of food systems with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and provided a space for countries to develop national pathways towards food system transformation. Food systems also featured prominently at the 26th and 27th UN Climate Change
Nature Sustainability
Sustainable agrifood systems are critical to averting climate-driven social and ecological disast... more Sustainable agrifood systems are critical to averting climate-driven social and ecological disasters, overcoming the growth paradigm and redefining the interactions of humanity and nature in the twenty-first century. This Perspective describes an agenda and examples for comprehensive agrifood system redesign according to principles of sufficiency, regeneration, distribution, commons and care. This redesign should be supported by coordinated education and research efforts that do not simply replicate dominant discourses on food system sustainability but point towards a post-growth world in which agroecological life processes support healthy communities rather than serving as inputs for the relentless pursuit of economic growth.
Hunger is needlessly killing millions of our fellow humans, including 2.6 million young children ... more Hunger is needlessly killing millions of our fellow humans, including 2.6 million young children every year. It condemns many others to life-long exposure to illness and social exclusion. This paper argues that a binding Food Treaty would create an appropriate framework to work together towards a food secure world. The eradication of hunger no later than 2025 would be the main objective, and fighting against obesity could also be considered. Within the treaty framework, those governments that are genuinely determined to end hunger (a coalition of the willing) could commit themselves to mutually-agreed binding goals, strategies and predictable funding. The paper presents the rationale to substantiate the treaty, as well as objectives, provisions and a possible route map for the process. This path shall involve civil society participation and include a Global Anti-Hunger Campaign during the negotiation process and beyond to build a strong constituency of public support for hunger eradication.
"La crisis alimentaria mundial más reciente ha puesto de manifie... more "La crisis alimentaria mundial más reciente ha puesto de manifiesto la incapacidad del derecho a la alimentación para atender y prevenir este tipo de situaciones. Ahora es el momento hacer más fuerte y eficaz este derecho, pasando de directrices de cumplimiento voluntario a leyes vinculantes. Como todos sabemos, no hace mucho tiempo, la FAO patrocinó la creación de directrices para el cumplimiento del derecho a la alimentación. Su publicación fue ampliamente celebrada, y se consideró que era el texto más detallado y completo que hubiera existido para hacer que este derecho sea una realidad para millones de personas que padecen hambre. No hay duda de que estas directrices proporcionan un marco exhaustivo para la acción y ofrecen una cobertura detallada de los temas importantes. Sin embargo, las nuevas realidades que han surgido en los últimos años, tal vez con demasiada rapidez y de forma inesperada, han puesto de manifiesto la necesidad de una regulación más completa del derecho a la alimentación que la proporcionada por las directrices. Idealmente, por tanto, su texto debería ser modificado y actualizado. El propósito de este libro es indicar algunas áreas y temas que tendrán un gran impacto en los próximos años en relación con la aplicación del derecho a la seguridad alimentaria y a los alimentos y que actualmente disponen de escasa o nula regulación. Estos son los nuevos retos a los que va a enfrentarse el derecho a la alimentación en el siglo XXI... "
Se destaca la importancia de la soberania nacional como aspecto fundamental de la soberania nacio... more Se destaca la importancia de la soberania nacional como aspecto fundamental de la soberania nacional, muy ligado a la seguridad nacional y a la garantia de los derechos de los ciudadanos. Y se desmonta la consideracion exclusiva de los alimentos como un bien privado, tan propia del sistema capitalista industrial, para proponer su consideracion como bien publico multidimensional (necesidad, derecho, cultura y comercio) y que debe ser gobernado de manera diferente, no exclusivamente por leyes de mercado. El Estado podria proporcionar alimentos gratis para todos, lo alimentario ha de tener su propio tratado internacional fuera de la OMC y hay que prohibir la especulacion financiera con un bien esencial.
LPTransition (lptransition.uclouvain.be) is a pluri-disciplinary, trans-sectorial and community-d... more LPTransition (lptransition.uclouvain.be) is a pluri-disciplinary, trans-sectorial and community-driven scientific research platform, created in 2015. Its specific purpose is to support existing research projects at the Universite catholique de Louvain on ecological and social transition with a transdisciplinary perspective (that is, in close cooperation with social partners and stemming from the social innovations that these actors initiate). Our vision is that production, translation and dissemination of knowledge for social and ecological transition requires close partnerships between researchers and practitioners during the entire research process. The end goal of such partnerships is to produce both better science and more socially robust knowledge. This paper will look back at and reflect on the platform’s first year of work with transition movements in the agri-food system. More in particular, we will evaluate and discuss three types of projects currently supported by the plat...
This policy document examines the application of social knowledge economy principles and the comm... more This policy document examines the application of social knowledge economy principles and the commons narrative to the primary sector (agriculture) of the economy. The rationale of the whole document is based on the new narrative that considers food as a commons and not purely as a commodity. A commons describe a specific resource that is owned and managed in common, shared and beneficial for all members of a community (Sandel, 2009). Commons shall not be enclosed by privatization, legislation, pricing or physical barriers. Moreover, commons can be provided by private, state means and self-regulated collective actions, and its property can be private, public or mixed. Food thus could perfectly be considered as a commons, as this paper seeks to prove. Along those lines, food and nutrition security and food sovereignty should also be considered as Global Public Goods 2 that are beneficial to all human beings and thus we all need to be involved in their governance and maintenance. The c...
What is the role of social learning inside local food networks aiming at a transition to a sustai... more What is the role of social learning inside local food networks aiming at a transition to a sustainable food system? In the project Food4Sustainability a research consortium sets out to investigate the network characteristics and learning processes occurring in these local food networks in Belgium. A conceptual framework was developed reflecting the transdisciplinarity of the consortium and aimed at analysing the different levels of the network. The hypothesis in the first part of the project is the importance of the contribution of converging strategic policy beliefs to a collaborative atmosphere amongst the different actors in the local food network. This was assessed by a social network analysis through a series of semi-structured interviews with key players in the local food network.status: publishe
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, only one vision has become hegemonic worldwide. The marginaliz... more Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, only one vision has become hegemonic worldwide. The marginalization of any alternative to the single thought, also known as the end of history (Fukuyama, 1989; IUC, 2009), has quickly generated what is known as neoliberalism, the new form of hybridization between public sovereignty and private corporations that has come to dominate contemporary structures of global governance (Harvey, 2007). This arrangement, with a crucial role for the military industrial complex, has not only produced new forms of world disorders. It has also disrupted the fundamental understanding of modernity, that of a neat distinction between a public and a private sector. The new hybrid corporate power, the current form of capital accumulation, now runs the world within a logic of global sovereignty that defeats every form of democratic control. Every single aspect of human life has been attracted within this bio-political machinery so that the very human being is now commodified like every other aspect of nature. The most tangible manifestation of this process is in the domain of two of the fundamental building blocks of human life: water and food. These two essential components of life are now almost entirely transformed into commodities, leading to forms of domination and subordination that are difficult to overestimate. The consequences of the current extractive system are so deep as to produce a new geological era, the so-called Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2006; Purdy, 2015) or Capitalocene (Moore, 2017), which is likely to destroy the very conditions of life and human civilization (Brown, 2008; Capra and Mattei, 2015). It is as a reaction to the massive abuses visited upon nature and community by the imperatives of reproduction of the dominant structure of power that the commons have re-emerged. This notion has the ambition to ground a counter-narrative and a political and institutional organization capable of shifting our pattern of development from an extractive and individual into a generative and collective mode. It is not, however, a new notion, as the commons have long constituted one way to organize and govern the relationship between society and nature resources (
Author(s): Aksnes, Brooke; Fardet, Anthony; Bhurtyal, Ashok; Castillo, Cecilia; Schuftan, Claudio... more Author(s): Aksnes, Brooke; Fardet, Anthony; Bhurtyal, Ashok; Castillo, Cecilia; Schuftan, Claudio; Parra, Diana; Cannon, Geoffrey; Kent, George; Sattamini, Isabella; Vivero Pol, Jose Louis; Alvim, Maria; Wahlqvist, Mark; Yambi, Olivia; Zazueta, Pilar; Patel, Raj; Garduno-Diaz, Sara; Khambadkone, Seva; Vandevijvere, Stefanie; de Sa, Thiago Herick | Abstract: Brooke Aksnes, Visions convenor, writes: Here are selected extracts of the testimonies - commitments, beliefs, and aspirations - of our 19 Visions writers. They are all WN editorial team members or regular contributors. We have a balance of younger and older visionaries, women and men, and team members and regular contributors, from all continents. Rational and sustainable plans will emphasise shared meals, strengthen social coherence, valorise established cultures, multiply local agriculture and food systems, protect rural and urban livelihoods, increase all forms of diversity, cleanse land, air and water, and reduce the burden ...
Food as a purely private good prevents millions to get such a basic resource, since the purchasin... more Food as a purely private good prevents millions to get such a basic resource, since the purchasing power determines access and the price of food does not reflect its multiple dimensions and the value to society. With the dominant no money-no food rationality, hunger still prevails in a world of abundance. Hunger is needlessly killing millions of our fellow humans, including 3.1 million young children every year, condemning many others to life-long exposure to illness and social exclusion. This paper argues this narrative has to be re-conceived and a binding Food Treaty, based on a commons approach to food, will create a more appropriate framework to work together towards a fairer and more sustainable world. The eradication of hunger no later than 2025 would be the main objective within a broader framework whereby food and nutrition security shall be understood as a Global Public Good. Within the treaty framework, those governments that are genuinely determined to end hunger (a coali...
Les statistiques sur la faim dans le monde, qui dépeignent un monde qui progresse de façon remarq... more Les statistiques sur la faim dans le monde, qui dépeignent un monde qui progresse de façon remarquable, servent à justifier les idéologies économiques prédominantes (productivisme, néolibéralisme et privatisation des ressources). Le présent texte propose une analyse approfondie de ces données (sous-alimentation, malnutrition chronique) et met en garde contre les interprétations biaisées. Régi par le système alimentaire industriel déterminé par le marché, le monde ne se porte pas très bien et l'OMD1 sur la lutte contre la faim n'a clairement pas été atteint. La loi de l'offre et la demande ne parviendra jamais à éradiquer la faim, comme l'affirment les Objectifs de développement durable pour l'après-2015, car le marché n'est nullement incité à offrir de la nourriture à ceux qui n'ont pas d'argent pour payer ces ressources vitales. Il est nécessaire qu'intervienne un changement fondamental et que soit établi un contrat social selon lequel la nourriture est considérée comme un bien de première nécessité pour tous et la nutrition comme un bien public. Le concept de nourriture pour tous fait référence à l'équité, la coopération, la résilience et la démocratie directe du niveau local au niveau mondial. Le présent texte fournit des éléments normatifs et pratiques en vue d'effectuer la transition vers la durabilité, qui a lieu actuellement dans de nombreuses sociétés rurales traditionnelles et qui est intégré à nombre d'initiatives collectives citoyennes pour la faim. Nous devons tous réaffirmer notre rôle en tant que citoyens-mangeurs et pas seulement comme consommateurs-mangeurs.
Global hunger statistics, portraying a world that is progressing remarkably, serve to justify the... more Global hunger statistics, portraying a world that is progressing remarkably, serve to justify the dominant economic ideology (productivism, neoliberalism and privatization of resources). This text provides a careful examination of those data (undernourishment and chronic malnutrition), revealing caveats and biased interpretations. The world is not doing so well under the market-driven industrial food system and the MDG1 on hunger was clearly not achieved. The supply/demand rules will never get rid of hunger, as preached by the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, since the market does not have incentives to provide food to those who do not have money to pay for such essential resource. We need a paradigm shift and social contract whereby food is considered a commons and nutrition a public good. The food commons are about equity, cooperation, resilience and direct democracy from local to global. This text provides normative and practical elements to navigate to transition towards sustainability that is actually happen in many rural customary societies and urban civic collective actions for food. We all have to re-claim our role as food citizens and not just as food customers.
¿Qué son los alimentos para nosotros y para los demás? ¿Cómo nuestra visión de los alimentos dete... more ¿Qué son los alimentos para nosotros y para los demás? ¿Cómo nuestra visión de los alimentos determina el tipo de políticas alimentarias que se llevan a cabo? Estas preguntas serán las guías de las sesiones-semilla, los debates y los trabajos colectivos que forman parte de este seminario doctoral
El sistema alimentario actual está fallando pues no cumple sus dos funciones principales: alimentar adecuadamente a toda la población del planeta y hacerlo de manera sostenible con los recursos que disponemos (tanto los finitos como los renovables) dentro de los limites planetarios. Nuestro sistema alimentario “low cost” está basado en paradigmas productivistas, dependencia de recursos energéticos finitos (petróleo y gas), con una concentración alarmante y un desbalance de poder entre productores, consumidores e intermediarios del Norte y del Sur Global.
La raíz del fracaso del sistema (insostenible e injusto) puede estar en la valoración personal y social que tenemos de los alimentos, el valor-en-uso y el valor-de-mercado que les asignamos y lo que representan para las sociedades/clases/elites dominantes. Las diferentes consideraciones de los alimentos (como insumo esencial para el ser humano, bien comerciable, derecho humano, recurso natural, determinante cultural o bien público) determinan las políticas alimentarias dominantes (seguridad alimentaria), y las propuestas contra-hegemónicas (soberanía alimentaria) y alternativas (derecho a la alimentación y movimiento de transición alimentario).
Durante este seminario vamos a debatir sobre los valores, su traslado a políticas alimentarias y las tensiones entre diferentes modelos/enfoques para construir un sistema alimentario más justo y sostenible para el 2050.
Se presenta de forma didáctica una narrativa diferente para acercarse a los alimentos como un bie... more Se presenta de forma didáctica una narrativa diferente para acercarse a los alimentos como un bien común, y no exclusivamente como un bien privado, y se describen aquellas características de los alimentos que son actualmente consideradas como un bien común, o bien público global. Finalmente, la seguridad alimentaria y nutricional de la población, entendida como una situación que nos beneficia a todos, de la que todos podemos y debemos ser partícipes y de la que todos se benefician aunque no contribuyan, es presentada como un Bien Público Global. Esta consideración no ha sido todavía considerada como tal en las reuniones post-2015 ni en los debates sobre bienes públicos globales.
Análisis de los principales elementos que forman el entramado argumental de la soberanía alimenta... more Análisis de los principales elementos que forman el entramado argumental de la soberanía alimentaria, viendo sus pros y contras. Decosntruir los elementos para reforzar el concepto. Con amor pero con cabeza.
This poster analyses the Food Security system of Guatemala and presents different three different... more This poster analyses the Food Security system of Guatemala and presents different three different scenarios of Advocacy Coalitions depending on the variables used to define the coalition boundaries. It proposes to better define what variables determine coalitions as the fuzzy approach to date does not benefit a scientifically-solid policy understanding.