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系统。这一运动在决策者中的影响力越来越大，无论是在市和州一级，通过新的机构结构，如食品政策委员会，还是在国家一级，在有关美国农业政策的辩论中。替代性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，但构成这些替代性愿景基础的地方的自然资源仍然没有得到充分研究。本博士论文研究项目与一个州（马萨诸塞州）的替代性农业食品运动组织的领导人合作，回答以下问题：（1）替代性农业食品运动的参与者如何设想未来的农业食品系统？(2)在农业食品系统变化的叙述中存在什么样的空间结构？以及（3）如何将替代性农业食品运动的理念传达给政策制定者？ 将利用对组织领导人的深入叙述式访谈和对组织出版物的文献分析，对运动内部的目标和变革愿景进行专题分析，并将重点放在地方政府在形成这些政治目标方面所发挥的作用。此外，焦点小组将用于将运动领导人聚集在一起，为未来的农业食品系统变革制定方案。研究结果将表明，在替代农业食品运动中的个人和团体的行为者是否以及如何利用"当地"的地方，以制定未来农业食品系统变化的愿景，以及这些愿景传达给政策制定者的方式。研究人员希望为农业食品系统的未来找到各种各样的愿景，并预计这项研究将加深对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的理解。从地方和基于地点的政治，政治生态学的地理理论和社会运动理论的叙事方法，摘要本研究将以地点为基础，分析马萨诸塞州的替代性农业食品运动对农业食品系统变迁的影响。对运动叙事的关注引起了人们对共同意义的关注，这种意义被用来制定政治目标，并将其传达给公众和政策制定者。当代替代农业食品运动的叙述绝大多数是基于地点的，侧重于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探讨这种基于地方的叙事是如何构建的，以及运动组织如何通过国家层面的政策改革来转化这些农业食品体系变革的政治愿景。这个博士论文研究项目还有助于一个新兴的国家研究议程，旨在更好地了解农业食品系统变革的愿景，并通过关注农业食品政治与建筑场所的联系，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.