You Are Where You Eat: A Theoretical Perspective on Why Identity Matters in Local Food Groups (original) (raw)
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If public decision-making has to follow a top-down or bottom-up process is quietly discussed not only in the literature (Richardson, Durose and Perry, 2019; Rachlinski, 2006; Panda, 2007) but rather also in the public debate. In this Research Note I am going to talk about how individuals identify themselves in Grassroots Movements, as an authentic form of bottom-up process for advocating shared interests and values. This will lead me in comparing those social movements to Brand Community, both united by a value-oriented behavior (Smelser, 1965). It is to say: their identity. This comparison is possible thanks to an authentic involvement of the people within those phenomena, allowing to use Social Identity Approach (Haslam, 2014) as a useful theoretical framework.
Local Food Movements: Differing Conceptions of Food, People, and Change
The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics , 2018
Books and articles supporting a local food movement have become commonplace, with popular authors such as Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver, and Michael Pollan espousing the virtues of eating locally. At the same time, others have critiqued the local food movement as failing to achieve its stated ends or as having negative unintended consequences. In this chapter, we provide a general analysis of local food movements, specifically separating this complex phenomenon into three distinct sub-movements. During this analysis, we pay particular attention to how sub-movements conceptualize people, food, and the roles that individuals, communities, and political institutions play when trying to bring about change. We argue that understanding these sub-movements is necessary for understanding and interacting with both local food’s supporters and its detractors.
Social movement actors seeking alternatives to the highly industrialized, global food system have been advocating for more sustainable, local food systems. Many of the local food movement strategies and initiatives to counter the conventional practices of the industrial food system have proven successful. Social movement researchers have documented the importance of the roles and services social movement organizations provide for movement constituents to realize their success, emphasizing human and financial capital as key components for mobilizing collective action. Researchers have also documented the value of interorganizational networks, and the benefits of collaboration to expand the share of resources, and perhaps more importantly design social movement frames to direct collective action for social change. However, what local food movement research has yet to address are some of the potential barriers that minimize collaboration among organizational leaders as it relates to social capital and collective identity. This dissertation takes a cross-sectional, network analysis of social movement organizations working to increase the sustainability of the local food system in Marin County, California, a historically agricultural region serving a number of urban communities. Findings from the mixed-methods research reveal evidence of collective identity and social capital as enhancing collaboration among particular types of organizations while reducing potential collaboration among and between other social movement organizations. By analyzing the collective identity and dichotomous nature of social capital among social movement organizations, this research contributes a clearer understanding of the existing gaps for realizing a more sustainable local food system.
The Role of Identity in Community Activities of Marginal Rural Areas
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Identity as a governance and coordination mechanism plays an important role in placemaking. It empowers community movements to build up a common space worthwhile to live in with pride and strengthen the attachment to their place. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between identity and neighborhood-based (or community-based) activism through the covariance structure analysis. The analysis is based on a survey of community activities in Nichinan, a town which is an example of a typical depopulating rural area in Japan. To answer the questions of how and why identity motivates community activism, some literature reviews were conducted on identity to mobilize collective action and several cases of having implemented a focus on regional identity especially in depopulating hilly and mountainous areas in Japan. The validity of the covariance structure analysis on identity and community activities was confirmed and the results showed that identity has a significant rel...
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