Food coalitions beyond the local scale: spaces for a democratic sustainability transformation

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Martina Schäfer
• Subject Area: Sociological Theory ; Empirical Social Research ; Political Science
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 532140187

Today’s globalised commodity chains are being challenged by the uneven distribution of benefits of globalisation, the concentration of economic and political power and, more recently, their weakened ability to respond to external shocks, such as economic crises or the Covid-19 pandemic. Against this background, individuals, communities, and companies are developing new models of globalised commodity chains that claim to be more environmentally sustainable, promote social welfare, create transparency and increase democratic control. However, there is no scientific evidence on whether they contribute to an alternative, democratic vision of sustainability or rather follow new forms of ‘green growth’. To provide scientific and practical knowledge, this project aims at gaining a deeper theoretical, empirical and societally relevant understanding of new forms of transformative governance to address global challenges. Using alternative global food chains as an example, we aim at identifying the opportunities and limitations of innovative forms of cross-border commodity chains to support democratic and sustainability transformation processes. To this end, we conceptualise alternative global food chains as Trans-Local Food Coalitions (TLFCs) – i.e., alternatives to globalised food commodity chains that represent innovative models of globalisation that consider democratic and sustainability implications. To examine TLFCs, we draw on the concept of ‘democratic and sustainability goods’ as desirable qualities of (food) democracy and (food systems) sustainability that can be identified and defined based on literature and empirical scrutiny. The research project combines different approaches of empirical social research (i.e., mapping, survey, and qualitative case studies in a comparative perspective). To enable comparison, the focus of the empirical analysis will be on TLFCs that start (production) or end (consumption) in one of the countries of the research institutions, i.e., the German-Swiss-Austrian (GSA) region. Based on a transdisciplinary approach, this empirical study will provide a typology of TLFCs in the GSA region and a consolidated conceptual framework of governance, democracy and sustainability for TLFCs. In addition, as a result of a comparative analysis of selected TLFCs, practical individual and comparative case study reports will be generated and recommendations for optimised governance co-created. This research will contribute to a large body of literature around the concept of food coalitions by adding a trans-local perspective that has been widely neglected so far. Findings will also provide cutting-edge contributions to sustainability transformation literature as well as transferable insights into how trans-local commodity chains can build a democratic vision of long-term sustainability despite geographical distance.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria, Switzerland
• Partner Organisation: Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF)
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Manfred Max Bergmann; Professorin Dr. Marianne Penker