Patriotism and Food Sovereignty: Changes in the Social Imaginary of Small‐Scale Farming in Post‐Euromaidan Ukraine

Abstract

This article discusses the relations between patriotism and food sovereignty in postEuromaidan Ukraine. It investigates how the rising Ukrainian national identity and patriotic sentiments during the geopolitical conflict with Russia led to a change in the social imaginary of traditional small-scale farming. Formerly, household farming was seen as a coping strategy of the post-Soviet population and a relic of the socialist past, doomed to disappear in the nearest future. Nowadays, more and more Ukrainians view small-scale farming as a sustainable alternative to large-scale industrial agriculture, which could feed Ukraine (and Europe) with ecological and healthy food. This study uses primary qualitative and quantitative data collected during field research before and after the Euromaidan revolution to reveal how pro-European aspirations and rising patriotism contribute to the emerging discourses on the 'rights to food and to farm' in Ukraine. This transformation could bring a new trajectory to the country's agricultural development and might lead to the emergence of a food sovereignty movement.

Agrarian social movements: The absurdly difficult but not impossible agenda of defeating right‐wing populism and exploring a socialist future

“…It is important not to forget that, historically, rural social classes and groups have a checkered record in terms of supporting right wing, even fascist political projects. The contemporary rural support for Trump in the United States (Ulrich-Schad & Duncan, 2018), Putin in Russia (Mamonova, 2016(Mamonova, , 2018(Mamonova, , forthcoming 2019, Le Pen in France, Erdogan in Turkey (Adaman, Arsel & Akbulut, forthcoming 2019;Gurel et al, forthcoming 2019), Modi in India, the Red Shirt movement in Thailand supporting Thaksin (Nishizaki, 2014), and the Greenshirts of 1920s and 1930s French led by Henry Dorgeres (Paxton, 1997) all remind us of past and present rural support to right-wing political ideas and initiatives. Bello (2018) offers a critical reflection on the relationship between the rise of fascism, the peasantry, and the middle class in Chile, Indonesia, Italy, the Philippines, and Thailand, seen from the contemporary context.…”

Between Imitation and Embeddedness: Three Types of Polish Alternative Food Networks

“…This does not mean that there are no attempts to engage in dialogue between universal academic models and situated knowledge. Two sample concepts originating from the region in question are the quiet sustainability idea noted in the Introduction [27] and works on the folk turn (e.g., [6]). The first concerns the transformative, sustainable potential of everyday informal food practices such as processing own food, exchange of food with significant others, and use of home gardens and family allotments.…”

“…Their change potential is realised despite the lack of direct references to the politically embedded sustainable development idea, as well as organised forms of protest or pressure on the authorities. Mamonova [6], based on studies conducted in Ukraine, points to the slightly different nature of AFNs, noting that alternative networks do not need to function in a progressive, civic context. In the view of the author, these networks are aligned with the popular, national awakening and are an attempt to reconstruct national and ethnic categories lost during the transformation process.…”

“…In agriculture, the modernisation paradigm [1] has defined a policy that favours farm enlargement and capital-intensive farming over smaller, labour-intensive farms. At the same time, CEE countries, at least to some degree, have retained their own historically grounded practices of localised food chains that endured during communist rule [2][3][4][5][6][7]. Local marketplaces, direct food sale along driveways, informal food provisioning chains, small-scale food production on allotments, and self-processing of food have been important and visible elements of the food landscape.…”

“…Along with those traditional practices, new alternative food networks (AFNs) have been emerging in recent years, mostly based on patterns derived from Western Europe and the U.S., and more or less deliberately adapted to the local context [8]. The paradox of building alternatives to the dominant food system in CEE countries entails tension between traditional, partially forgotten practices and new patterns based on regulations, and practices derived from other cultural and social contexts [6][7][8][9].…”