Oral Presentation Institute of Australian Geographers & The New Zealand Geographical Society Conference 2014

Alternative food initiatives: catalysing food citizenship in urban food assemblages (17035)

Emma L Sharp 1
  1. University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

I am interested in the emergence of Auckland’s Alternative Food Initiatives (AFIs) as a reaction to our dominant corporatised, industrialised food (non)systems, as they present a geography of hope, new possibilities of doing otherwise in the world, and a more novel and citizen-focussed food structure.

I discuss my use of qualitative, participatory research to explore the embodiment of food politics related to particular AFI case studies. The motivations, actions and potential of these AFIs appear to rest on a set of transgressions, and in this presentation I focus on daring to think, act, and make food otherwise in onto-epistemological transgression. I discuss the crossing of boundaries for AFIs and their participants to actively share information, resources and other capital with others in lively citizenship, and the transformative potential of their dynamic assembly for a new food future.