State of the World Food System Special Issue: Mapping the Global Food Landscape (original) (raw)
The articles by Friedmann, Koç, and Wise draw out overarching issues in the world food system; issues that resurface throughout this special issue of Canadian Food Studies. They offer complementary views where the dominant model, upon which transnational policies are created, ignores pressing concerns in the food system related to the distribution of food, human health, and the environment. In this contribution, I will use the concept of transnational policy paradigms to illustrate the key tension between the status quo of food policy and emerging alternatives. Focusing on this tension raises two important questions. First, what is the relationship between the dominant model of food policy (which shapes how we identify problems and solutions) and "less travelled" models that frame problems and solutions in a different way? Second, what are the obstacles blocking a paradigm shift? In order to answer these questions, the concept of "policy paradigm" will be unpacked, followed by an assessment of the long-emerging contest between the dominant productionist-neoliberal and alternative agroecological paradigms. Paradigms and production The concept of a "paradigm" refers to scientific communities, shared commitments/values, and the creation of common frameworks among them based on a shared framework for addressing a problem (Kuhn, 1970). Importantly, an implication of this is that paradigms are partly social in