Relational autonomy highlights how interdependencies shift in the transformation of food provisioning

Summary

In the past decade, there has been a surge in the Netherlands in food initiatives that seek to transform the prevailing agro-industrial model of food provisioning. This has evolved into a wide range of values-based territorial food networks (VTFNs). This article aims to understand the evolving diversity in VTFNs by looking more deeply into how community, circular, and territorial-based food networks operate. In doing so, the article examines how citizens, rural workers, and farmers cooperate to change and create connections between livestock, land, water, and other resources. Furthermore, it aims to assess to what extent the evolving food provisioning practices of these VTFNs are re-embedded in the territory, how their collective capacity to transform food provisioning practices has expanded, and the impact that the expanded capacity has on the degree of relational autonomy over their operations. Twelve participatory observations and 16 interviews with farmers and citizens engaged in three different VTFNs are analyzed by identifying themes that emerged from the data, and themes that originate from the concept relational autonomy. Relational autonomy is introduced by feminist scholars and entails that autonomy is not an individual matter but is created in relationships. The concept allows for a deeper understanding of how a transformation of relations can raise the autonomy of all living beings, both human and non-human. The analysis demonstrates how relational autonomy in the three VTFNs studied is emerging along the three interdependent and co-evolving dimensions identified by Catriona Mackenzie (2019): determination, governance, and authorization. All three VTFNs studied crafted their own pathway toward relational autonomy by creating opportunities and building capacities. A relational autonomy lens enables us to articulate the interconnectedness between human and non-human systems; for example, phasing out agrochemicals increases our reliance on natural processes. This necessitates farmers and rural workers' ability to mimic these processes and requires a rearranging of market relations to share risks more equitably with citizens.