Framing Food Geographies : Framing analysis, food distancing, and the democratic imagination in rural and urban Ontario, Canada

Abstract: The current global food system is market-driven and depends on the exploitative commodification of our basic need to eat. It has been consistently condemned for its incapacity to account for justice, sustainability, welfare, and health. Developing alternative food system strategies is a necessary step towards creating a more sustainable and just reality. By conducting a comparative analysis using semi-structured interviews and virtual mapping between a rural area and an urban city in Ontario, Canada, the relationship between food geographies and the development of diagnostic (problem-oriented) and prognostic (solution oriented) framings within the corporate food regime is explored. Considering the influences of socio-geographical context (i.e. urban or rural), and the impacts of cognitive and physical food distancing adds new perspective and considerations to the existing literature. The results found that the urban participants had more robust diagnostic and prognostic framings than the rural participants. They also found that the impacts of food distancing were represented by the participants differently; The urban participants experienced more significant cognitive and physical distancing, but were mostly worried about the impacts of cognitive food distancing, whereas the rural participants were mostly focused on the impacts of physical distancing and were less affected by both types of distancing.