Scholar-activists in an expanding European food sovereignty movement

Abstract

This article analyzes the roles, relations, and positions of scholaractivists in the European food sovereignty movement. In doing so, we document, make visible and question the political dimensions of researchers' participation in the movement. We argue that scholar-activists are part of the movement, but are distinct from the affected constituencies, put in place to ensure adequate representation of key movement actors. This is because scholaractivists lack a collective identity, have no processes to formulate collective demands, and no mechanisms for inter-researcher and researchers-movement communication. We reflect on whether and how scholar-activists could organize, and discuss possible pathways for a more cohesive and stronger researcher engagement in the movement.

Operating principles for collective scholar-activism: Early insights from the Agroecology Research-Action Collective

“…ARC differs from the efforts reported in Duncan et al (2019) in that we are consciously creating a network of activist-scholars who all work on agroecology and food sovereignty, across multiple institutions and organizations, some universitybased, some independent, some NGO-based. To name a few examples, one of us specializes in community-based approaches to advancing agroecology for food security, nutrition, and gender justice in Malawi (Bezner Kerr, Hickey, Lupafya, & Dakishoni, 2019).…”

“…In recent years, researchers have also explored the particular challenges of how to relate scholaractivism to food movements. For instance, Duncan et al (2019) discuss the place of researchers in the larger European food sovereignty movement and whether they can form their own constituency within the movement's governance architecture. In Europe, activist-scholars in this arena tend to focus on their individual research agendas and are primarily accountable to their home institutions, even though they seek to collaborate with and be more accountable to movements.…”

“…Simultaneously, activist-scholars worry about overshadowing movement knowledge and leadership through asserting their expertise. Responding to these tensions, Duncan et al (2019) call for the creation of "formal operating mechanisms" that can help researchers move beyond individually negotiated researcher-movement relationships and towards collective processes that require and reproduce non-hierarchical and mutually beneficial relationships rather than extractive and oppressive ones. This is the challenge to which ARC's collective development of Principles & Protocols responds.…”

“…It also reflected an important current trend in U.S. and international agroecology: Many individual scholars have dedicated themselves and their research to working in and with movements to advance food system transformations. Yet, not enough analysis has been done to address the issue of how to foster alliances or coalitions between scholar-activists and other actors in movements for agroecology, food sovereignty, and agrarian justice (Duncan et al, 2019). This is the work ARC set out to do.…”

Agroecology now - connecting the dots to enable agroecology transformations

“…In contributing to agroecology and food sovereignty praxis (Levkoe, Brem-Wilson, and Anderson 2018) as a collective we are keenly aware of our responsibility to be reflexive and self-critical. To this end, we continue to think deeply about our theories of change, our values and principles, and the different roles that we can and do play in enabling agroecology transformations in the food sovereignty movement at large (Duncan et al 2019). This includes avoiding approaches that co-opt or disable bottom-up and people-driven processes.…”