Spanier, J., 2025. What does it mean to nurture ‘good intentions between city and country’? Performances of rural–urban relations in community-supported agriculture. Geoforum 159, 104211.   Abstract: As community-supported agriculture (CSA) comprises a direct relationship between food producers and consumers, scholars and activists have pointed out its potential to improve rural–urban relations. This paper explores…

Raj, G., Feola, G., 2025. Becoming community economy: how community-supported agriculture diversifies farm labour. Local Environment.   Abstract: Analyses of diverse and community economies have formed a fruitful basis for studying postcapitalist possibilities in agrifood systems and the economy. However, diverse economies scholarship has foregrounded the study of the economic diversity landscape encountered and sustained in community…

Feola, G., 2025. Postgrowth food systems: critique, visions, pathways. Degrowth Journal 3, 00278.   Abstract: Sustainable food systems are essential for societies to be able to thrive within planetary boundaries. Multiple visions compete to cast light on the future of food production and consumption worldwide. However, it has become difficult for many to imagine pathways to…

On 28 November 2024 Julia Spanier successfully defended her PhD thesis titled ‘A rural(–urban) perspective: Agricultural grassroots initiatives and the making of post-capitalist futures’. Abstract. This PhD thesis explores the role of agricultural grassroots initiatives (AGIs) in societal transformations away from the capitalist status quo. AGIs are bottom-up, small-scale alternatives that exist within (and in…

Julia Spanier, Leonie Guerrero Lara and Jacob Smessaert co-authored a new paper titled ‘Building solidarities and alliances between degrowth and food sovereignty movements‘ (Journal of Political Ecology). Degrowth and food sovereignty movements share commitments to social-ecological transformation, democracy and the flourishing of human and non-human life. Encounters between the two movements have been relatively limited, however….

On 26 September 2024, Giuseppe Feola presented the paper titled ‘Beyond refusal: reconceptualising deconstruction in prefigurative social spaces’ at the Conference ‘Grassroots Innovations as Incubators of Sustainability Transitions’ at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Abstract. Social scientists have often studied grassroots initiatives in terms of prefiguration, which has generated important insights into the construction of…

On 13 September 2024 Jacob Smessaert successfully defended his PhD thesis titled ‘Practising democracy in agrifood collectives: building political communities in-against-and-beyond capitalism and the state’. Abstract. This thesis sets out to analyse how democratic praxis in grassroots agrifood collectives contributes to the fostering of sustainability transformations that take a critical stance towards capitalism and the…

The paper ‘Degrowth and agri-food systems: a research agenda for the critical social sciences‘, published in Sustainability Science, received a honorable mention in the journal’s 2023 Best Paper competition.

van Oers, L., Feola, G., Moors, E., Runhaar, H., (in press). Facilitating unlearning in agricultural education: preparing for family-farm succession. The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension. Abstract: This paper seeks to explore the manner in which secondary vocational education in agriculture can facilitate unlearning among young farmers. In this context, ‘unlearning’ means deliberately letting go…

Giuseppe Feola delivered the keynote talk at the opening session of the 15th Conference of the International Farming Systems Association in Trapani, Italy, on 1 July 2024. The talk, titled ‘Postgrowth farming systems: critique, visions, pathways‘, argued that the unsustainability and injustice of industrial food systems in modern capitalist societies have roots not merely in…