Social Science Resarch on Food Action Networks in the Alternative Agrifoods Movement

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助。Nonini和Dorothy C.荷兰（北卡罗来纳州查佩尔山大学）将在北卡罗来纳州的四个地点进行关于粮食行动网络和替代农业食品运动的研究。研究人员试图调查这种地方表现的多个方面，即在广泛的经济挑战和气候变化的情况下，美国对食品，其生产，流通和消费的社会关注日益增加。要解决的问题包括：（a）社会空间组织，地方政府和基础设施资源，社会多样性，和FAN参与之间的关系;（B）FAN的组织和活动的内部和跨网站;（c）参与者如何看待和行动的FAN的道德逻辑，特别是与市场逻辑;以及（d）这一运动与美国其他地方的可持续农业和社区粮食安全运动之间的关系。研究人员将采用社会科学研究方法的混合，包括民族志参与者观察，半结构化访谈，密集的关键线人访谈，印刷和其他媒体的文本分析，档案研究和社会网络分析。 这项研究很重要，因为它将有助于公众和政策制定者了解替代农业食品的做法和话语，这将有助于建立一个更强大和更有弹性的粮食供应系统。这项研究还将有助于发展社会科学理论，承认社会运动的多样性，并能够纳入对当地行为者的微观研究，这些行为者也了解他们在其中运作的更大的经济和政治机构，并根据这些机构采取行动。资助这项研究还支持四名研究生的研究培训。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009(Public Law 111-5).Anthropologists Dr. Donald M. Nonini and Dr. Dorothy C. Holland (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) will undertake research on food action networks (FANs) and the alternative agrifoods movement in four sites in North Carolina. The researchers seek to investigate multiple aspects of this local manifestation of increasing social concern about food, its production, circulation, and consumption in the United States, at a time of widespread economic challenges and climate change. Topics to be addressed include: (a) the relationship between socio-spatial organization, local governmental and infrastructure resources, social diversity, and FAN participation; (b) the organization and activities of FANs within and across sites; (c) how participants perceive and act upon the moral logics of FANs, particularly in relation to marketplace logics; and (d) the relationship between this movement and sustainable agriculture and community food security movements found elsewhere in United States. The researchers will employ a mix of social science research methods, including ethnographic participant observation, semi-structured interviews, intensive key-informant interviews, text analysis of print and other media, archival research, and social network analysis. This research is important because it will contribute to public and policymaker understanding of alternative agrifoods practices and discourses, which will help to build a more robust and resilient food provision system. The research also will help to develop social science theory that recognizes diversity within social movements and that is able to incorporate micro-level studies of local actors who also are aware of and act in relation to the larger economic and political institutions within which they operate. Funding this research also supports research training of four graduate students.