Trust is often an assumed outcome of participation in Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) as they directly connect producers with consumers. It is based on this potential for trust "between producers and consumers" that AFNs have emerged as a significant field of food studies analysis as it also suggests a capacity for AFNs to foster associated embedded qualities, like 'morality', 'social justice', 'ecology' and 'equity'. These positive benefits of AFNs, however, cannot be taken for granted as trust is not necessarily an outcome of AFN participation. Using Chinese case studies of AFNs, which are characterised by a distinct form of trust pressure-consumers who are particularly cynical about small scale farmers, food safety and the organic credentials of producers-this paper highlights how the dynamics of trust are in constant flux between producers and consumers. I suggest that it is the careful construction of the aesthetic and multi-sensory qualities of food, which is often celebrated via social media, that human centred relations in Chinese AFNs are mediated. This leads to two key conclusions: first, that the key variable for establishing trust is satisfying the consumer's desire for safe (i.e. "fresh") food; and second, the materiality of the food and the perception of foods materiality (especially through social media), must both be actively constructed by the farmer to fit the consumer's ideal of freshness.
This co-authored text represents the output of the research project 'Futures of Global Relations', led by Astrid H. M. Nordin, the first meeting of which was funded by the Chiang-Ching Kuo Foundation and the Lancaster Institute for Social Futures.
This paper argues that the approaches to global environmental change engendered by conventional environmental discourse have undermined the radical connotations of the Anthropocene. Taking direction from Clark's (2013, Geoengineering and geologic politics. Environment and Planning A 45(12): 2825-2832; 2014, Geo-politics and the disaster of the Anthropocene. The Sociological Review 62: 19-37) concept of geological politics, this paper attempts to rescue the discourses surrounding geoengineering and Transition Towns from dated environmental understandings. By demonstrating how our understanding of a human being-in-the-world can change in the Anthropocene, this paper argues that an experimental and material form of politics needs to shape the agenda of social scientists. Using this experimental perspective, this paper offers the creative example of how Transition Towns may become concordant with local geoengineering practices. Using this example to highlight how environmental discourse in the Anthropocene needs to encompass cross-societal formation with the more-than-human elements of our planet, this paper argues for material experimentation that concerns community participation and socio-technical innovation.
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