Food

This case study on the ‘Global North’ explores the governance, actor constellations and power relations within two formal entities aiming for alternative agri-food systems in Berlin-Brandenburg region: various Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) initiatives in eastern Brandenburg (Ackerbande, Lawine, Basta, Bienenwerder) as well as the Berlin Food Policy Council (Berliner Ernährungsrat).

The case study examines the malleability and resilience of the regional food system and investigates the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion in Ukraine onto the latter. In addition, various aspects of (promised and experienced) wellbeing will be critically assessed as well as the impact of the CSAs and Food Policy Council onto the regional food governance. Similarly to the Eastern European case study, various  methods are planned (participatory observation, food logs, in-depth individual and semi-structured focus group interviews, walking interviews and more) and the case study will be conducted in close collaboration with the Polička Collective, Berlin Food Policy Council as well other modules from the REMASS.

This case study on the ‘Global East’ explores the governance, stakeholders as well as wellbeing outcomes within a rather overlooked Food Self-Provisioning practice thriving at the European periphery.

Subsistence farming, in general, and Food Self-Provisioning in post-socialist Europe, in particular, have for long been (and often still is being) framed as a ‘survival/coping strategy of the poor’. Despite contesting and revaluing interpretations of this common practice that emphasize its ecologically, socially and individually beneficial aspects and demonstrate its subversive potential, subsistence has remained a somewhat controversial concept.

Through an in-depth place-based exploration of the Food (Self-)Provisioning this case study aims to enhance the understanding of the creative ways in which households and gardeners maintain (or increase) the resilience of their agri-food systems during socio-economic turmoil (e.g. The fall of the USSR, economic recession in 1998 and 2008, Covid-19 pandemic). Shedding light on the formal and informal sources of food, hybrid forms of FSP as well as prevalent networks and power relations in place the tranformative potential of FSP to regional agri-food systems as well as to (more-than) human wellbeing will be investigated.

Within the case study an innovative set of methods will be applied (participatory observation, arts-based research, food logs, in-depth individual and semi-structured focus group interviews, walking interviews and more) and the case study will be conducted in close collaboration with Polička Collective as well other modules from the REMASS.