Alternative framings of alternative food: A typology of practice

Abstract

‘Alternative’ food initiatives (AFIs) are often interpreted as political movements, constructed as defiant alternatives to industrial agri-food relations, and represented by a performance of singular alterity. This understanding of alternative collapses into a mere politics of identity, criticised in the literature for its oversimplification. In this paper, we utilise an established methodological framework that retains AFI diversity, to create a novel typology of AFIs by diverse and embodied practice rather than animating political project. In doing so, we point to the political potential for AFIs to ‘do’ food otherwise and make different worlds.