Stories of Change: Alternative Food Networks in the Urban Setting of Zurich

Abstract: Food is political: from seed over production to distribution and consumption. Large scale agriculture infused multi-layered social, ecological, and economic issues. The need to change the dominant food system approach is widely recognised. Alternatives in food production and distribution emerged and persisted over time. This thesis shows that narrative research in Alternative Food Networks provides important insights into practices that aspire to be ecological and socially just, and further illuminates and increases knowledge production on the ecosystem that, in turn, forms a vital part in transforming the food system. Using a narrative approach, this thesis engages in the praxis of seven Alternative Food Networks in the urban area of Zurich: three Community Supported Agriculture farms; a food cooperative; a community garden; a food council, and a food bank. The thesis investigates how the alternative practices are enacted, engaged, created and defined. Employing a decolonial framework, the research starts with the interlocutors’ praxis and only then connects it with theory. Entanglements and breakouts of local and global structures form part of the analysis and interweave with concepts from Feminist Political Ecology. Breaking out of structures is complex and such an analysis deserves time and space. The narrative approach gives space to personal relations and the projects’ emergence, struggles, blooming, and opportunities. The narratives include a discussion on the alienation from nature and from farmers, and how the alternative practices aspire to reconnect them. The research shows the interlocutors’ understanding of the world as relational and process-based. As such, the research illuminates the acuteness to conceive agriculture as care work. While the studied Alternative Food Networks received support from the government, organisations, and individuals, local obstacles include access to land and infrastructure and an appropriate legal representation of their structures. This paper calls for recognition and support of a plurality of alternatives that can coevolve and coexist. More such stories of alternative practices enhance their presence as everyday realities.