The new Italian take on food sovereignty : a discourse analysis of food sovereignty in different contexts

Abstract: This research is investigating the Italian Government’s use of the food sovereignty discourse. This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of the semantic term and how its meaning changes in different contexts. Food sovereignty was originally coined by the “peasant movement” called La Via Campesina. It is an international movement with the purpose of giving voice to small-scale farmers, rural women, agricultural workers, and indigenous people all over the world. They are characterised as an international resistance movement by opposing the neoliberal and capitalist paradigm. Meanwhile, in 2022 the new Italian Government led by Giorgia Meloni decided to implement food sovereignty in their agri-food sector as one of their main priorities. Her party “Fratelli d’Italia” is a conservative right-wing party with radical nationalistic values. The ideology of Fratelli d'Italia contradicts the origins of La Via Campesina’s food sovereignty discourse. This essentially becomes an interesting case for a discourse analysis of the term food sovereignty. This investigation is based on Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse analysis. Their theoretical concepts will help navigate through the structuring of meaning and how they come to challenge each other. The empirical analysis will demonstrate primarily through nodal points and chain of equivalences how articulations reproduce, challenges and forms discourses. More importantly, it will give us an understanding of how meaning enter our social field and the world of politics.