Doctoral Dissertation Research: Alternative Agrifood Politics in Massachusetts: Social Movements and Policy Change

替代农业食品运动是一个基础广泛的社会运动，致力于在美国建立更可持续和社会公正的农业和食品体系。这场运动正在通过食品政策委员会等新的机构结构，在市和州两级的政策制定者中，以及在国家一级，在有关美国农业政策的辩论中获得影响力。替代农业食品运动政治强调本地化或区域化农业食品系统的优势，但构成这些替代愿景基础的地方想象仍未得到充分研究。这一博士论文研究项目与一个州(马萨诸塞州)的替代农业食品运动组织的领导人合作，以回答以下问题：(1)替代农业食品运动参与者如何展望未来的农业食品系统？(2)农业食品系统变化的叙述中存在哪些空间想象？(3)替代农业食品运动的理想是如何传达给政策制定者的？将利用对本组织领导人的叙述性访谈和对本组织出版物的纪实分析，对运动中的目标和变革愿景进行专题分析，并将重点放在当地想象在形成这些政治目标方面所发挥的作用。此外，将利用焦点小组将运动领导人聚集在一起，为未来农业食品系统的变化制定方案。这些发现将展示替代农业食品运动中的个人和行为者群体是否以及如何利用“当地”地点的想象来制定未来农业食品系统变化的愿景，以及这些愿景如何传达给政策制定者。研究人员希望找到对农业食品系统未来的各种愿景，并期待这项研究将更好地理解这种基于地点的政治的动态及其在当代围绕农业食品系统的可持续性和正义的辩论中的作用。这项研究借鉴了基于地点和基于地点的政治的地理理论、政治生态学和社会运动理论的叙事方法，将建立基于地点的分析，对马萨诸塞州替代农业食品运动对农业食品系统变化的愿景进行分析。对运动叙述的关注使人们注意到用于制定和向公众和政策制定者传达政治目标的共同一代意义。当代替代农业食品运动的叙述绝大多数是以地点为基础的，重点是消费者可以获得并融入社区的小规模农村农业的愿景。为这项研究进行的分析将审查这种基于地点的叙述是如何构建的，以及运动组织如何通过州一级的政策改革来转化这些关于农业食品系统变化的政治愿景。这一博士论文研究项目还有助于正在形成的国家研究议程，该议程旨在更好地理解农业食品系统变革的愿景，并通过重点研究农业食品政治与建设场所的联系，将为政策制定者和替代农业食品运动之间的对话提供新的工具。

The alternative agrifood movement is a broad-based social movement that is working to build more sustainable and socially just agriculture and food systems in the United States. The movement is gaining influence among policy-makers, both at the municipal and state levels through new institutional structures such as Food Policy Councils, and at the national level, in debate concerning U.S. agricultural policy. Alternative agrifood movement politics emphasize the advantages of localized or regionalized agrifood systems, yet the imaginaries of local places that form the foundation for these alternative visions remain understudied. This doctoral dissertation research project works with the leaders of alternative agrifood movement organizations in one state (Massachusetts) to answer the following questions: (1) How do alternative agrifood movement actors envision future agrifood systems?; (2) What spatial imaginaries are present in narratives of agrifood system change?; and (3) How are alternative agrifood movement ideals communicated to policy makers? In-depth, narrative interviews with organization leaders and documentary analysis of organization publications will be used to conduct a thematic analysis of the objectives and visions for change present within the movement, and will focus on the role played by imaginaries of local places in the formation of these political objectives. In addition, focus groups will be used to bring movement leaders together to produce scenarios for future agrifood system change. The findings will demonstrate whether and how individuals and groups of actors within the alternative agrifood movement draw on imaginaries of "local" places to develop visions for future agrifood system change, and the ways in which these visions are communicated to policy-makers. The investigators expect to find a wide variety of visions for the future of agrifood systems and anticipate that this research will generate an improved understanding of the dynamics of such place-based politics and their role in contemporary debates surrounding sustainability and justice in the agrifood system.Drawn from geographic theories of place and place-based politics, political ecology, and narrative approaches to social movement theory, this research will build a place-based analysis of visions for agrifood system change with the alternative agrifood movement in Massachusetts. The focus on movement narratives draws attention to the shared generation of meaning that is used to develop and communicate political goals to the public and to policy-makers. Contemporary alternative agrifood movement narratives are overwhelmingly place-based, focusing on a vision of small-scale, rural agriculture that is accessible to consumers and integrated into communities. The analysis conducted for this research will examine the ways in which such place-based narratives are constructed, and the ways in which movement organizations work to translate these political visions of agrifood system change through policy reform at the state level. This doctoral dissertation research project also contributes to an emerging national research agenda that seeks to better understand visions for transformative change in agrifood systems, and by focusing on the connection of agrifood politics to constructions place, will provide new tools for dialogue between policy-makers and the alternative agrifood movement.