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…

van Oers, L., Smessaert, J., Feola, G., (in press). Initiating transformation within a Dutch grassroots agri-food initiative: An analysis of social processes. Sociologia Ruralis. This article brings new empirical evidence and nuanced reflections on the social processes of transformation within grassroots agri-food initiatives that propose relocalised, decentralised and autonomous ways of organising around food systems….

On 26 June 2024 Laura van Oers successfully defended her PhD thesis titled ‘Unlearning unsustainability: Facilitating phase-out in sustainability transitions in the Dutch food system‘. The thesis aims to contribute to scholarly debates on the governance of regime destabilisation and phase-out in sustainability transition studies. In particular, I suggest broadening the notion of phase-out in…

On 22 May 2024, Guilherme Raj defends his thesis titled ‘It is about power: Unveiling power and empowerment in grassroots agri-food initiatives’. This PhD thesis aims to elucidate the role of power and empowerment in the sustainability transformation of agri-food systems. Guilherme focuses on agri-food transformation within grassroots agri-food initiatives, which serve as spaces for…

Rossi, A., Piccoli, A., Feola, G. (in press). Transforming labour around food? the experience of community supported agriculture in Italy Agriculture and Human Values. Abstract.  This study examines the strategies developed by Italian Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) initiatives to de-commodify, de-instrumentalise and de-monetise labour in their attempt to prefigure alternatives to dominant capitalist agri-food systems. To do…

Laura van Oers presented her PhD research on unlearning in sustainability transitions at UCLouvain (Belgium). The research talk was part of a tri-cycle of seminars on unlearning and critical approaches to nature-based solutions. Laura’s talk discussed the notion of ‘unlearning spaces’ and presented  insights from her empirical research on community supported agriculture in the Netherlands.

Smessaert, J., Feola, G., (in press). Becoming-interdependent: democratic praxis in-against-and-beyond capitalism in agrifood collectives. Antipode. Abstract. This paper contributes to debates on autonomous geographies by fore-grounding and analysing democratic praxis in two grassroots agrifood collectives to interrogate the ways in which it constitutes a vehicle for postcapitalist transformation. We focus on the negotiation and (re)distribution of power…

Raj, G. (in press). Selective, reciprocal and quiet: Lessons from rural queer empowerment in community-supported agriculture. Agriculture and Human Values.   Abstract. Rural queer studies, viewed through the lens of relational agriculture, offer critiques of heteropatriarchal norms in farming and highlight strategies used by queer farmers to manoeuvre discrimination and thrive in rural areas. This…

Frank, L., Feola., G., Schäpke, N., 2024. Assessing regime destabilisation through policy change: An analysis of agricultural policy in the United Kingdom during Brexit. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 50, 100810.   Abstract In sustainability transitions research, the deliberate destabilisation of socio-technical regimes is increasingly recognised as a central intervention point. Absent, however, are granular approaches for assessing…

On 31 January 2024 Leonie Guerrero Lara successfully defended her PhD titled ‘Nurturing Networks: A Social Movement Lens on Community-Supported Agriculture‘. Abstract The political dimension of community-supported agriculture (CSA), beyond prefiguring alternatives to the conventional, capitalist agri-food system, has remained largely unexplored by the scientific community. The large majority of studies on CSA have explored…