I just get everyone to take a seat and we'll start the session. Thank you all for coming out so early and looking so bright and bushy. Tailed everybody Now, before we do start
our proceedings today.
So that's me giving myself feedback.
That's how you roll. It's not here.
I'd like to welcome welcome our online guests as well, including Mario, who is presenting today. But before we start I would like us to just take a moment to consider our acknowledgment of country and acknowledge that we are on. And so the unseeded land of the Nam people, and also
for international visitors. very important moment. Coming up in Australian history with the referendum on the voice for an indigenous or the referendum for an indigenous voice in Parliament. It's a very important moment in Australian history, and if you haven't had a conversation with someone about it.
or you've got any questions, I really encourage you to engage with that. And now it's my absolute pleasure to introduce Kia Smith, who is the brains behind the session. I'm Alana man. I'm her co-convina, and I'm just delighted to be along for the ride. So over to Kia to introduce what this session is about.
Thank you. Thanks everyone. I also like to acknowledge the We're a jury people and on the traditional lands on which we stand today. So I'll really quickly give a really brief introduction to the sessions. We've got one today and one tomorrow afternoon. So these sessions are called alternative food futures connecting research with citizen politics. So so I've got a little bit of a blurb. So I thought, I'll read that out. And then hopefully, we'll set the scene for the presentations that you're going to hear today and tomorrow.
So, starting off with this idea of food Utopias and some of you might be familiar with this this work, but this provides both theory and method to tell the many new stories of food and agriculture that help illuminate the ideology of our current system while engaging in the work to help the new stories take root.
But research about new ways of doing food futures differently is therefore not only academic, it's also a political project aimed at demonstrating new ways of sharing, thinking, and doing that emerge from active engagement between and among diverse civic food experiments.
This occurs across movements for food, justice, food, sovereignty, agriculture, the right to food and solidarity, care, economy, etc., etc., all of which occupy an important place at the intersection of sociologies of food and or futures. So I should say today that this is also a Co badge session with the sociology of futures our research group.
So these sessions today and tomorrow invite researchers to share innovative methods and recent findings that can help make connections between personal and collective visions for future societies, justice and food system reform.
In particular, we're interested to hear from stories that give citizen food, politics a central space in creating new stories about food. And so progress understandings of how alternative practices for sustainable and just food futures might better inform policy or activism.
So what new stories for food futures are emerging, and from whom or by whom and how might these be mobilized to challenge existing food power relations.
What methods can practice oriented researchers use to progress work at this nexus?
So, following a very popular call for abstracts, we've received around 15 or something submissions, the papers being presented today and tomorrow. Reflect a rich selection of case studies of research into how citizen food politics are shaping the visions, discourses, policies, and actions within emerging alternative broadly put food networks around the world. So we've got a variety of theoretical approaches to analyzing power and governance. Included in the papers.
there's a strong increase across the papers in unpacking how transformation itself is occurring, applying ideas around transformative and change.
We've also got a common thread through these papers is about is on telling news stories about food narratives and storytelling as work and co-creation methodologies, and we've got papers from Australia, Europe, South Korea, Latin America, China, and Canada.
So that's a bit of an introduction to the session for today and tomorrow. Thanks.
thanks, Kia. And as as chair. It will be my pleasure to invite our speakers to take 15Â min each. So quite a generous allocation. This morning I will be sitting there, and I will give you a wave at 13Â min, so that you'll have 2Â min to make sure you wrap up, and then we'll have time for a couple of questions for each speaker, and it's my pleasure first of all to welcome
Kia to the stage.
and I want to thank the hong as well. I think the volunteers giving us support are doing an amazing job. And this is one example of just how they're helping, and that. That's the second one. Not that one.
Yeah. absolutely.
The presentation. That's first on the list, which is Peters. Civil society engagement and food systems. Governance in Canada is going to happen in tomorrow. Yes, that one, for
did they see this one's not video, he said. My good. He's building.
He's
he's building the tension. You could just just say that. And before Kia does go ahead, I just would like to say that. I think it's amazing what you're doing in your research, and I want to just say what an a. A generous and inclusive scholar Kia is, and many of us have been following her work. She's been on an amazing research program
for years, and at every step of the way she's demonstrating herself to be an emerging leader in our field. And I just want to say it's a fabulous achievement.
And what you've done to bring people together is really incredible. Thank you. Well, today I'm going to talk about that project I've been working on for the last few years, and it's called Fair food futures.
So before I start I acknowledged the traditional owners. There were a jury people here, but I'd also like to acknowledge the Terrible and Niagara people on the lands in which I work in Myanen and Brisbane.
So today, what if I how am I starting off today? So today, this is this work is called Fairford futures in the sociology of food and agriculture. But I'm going to turn today a little bit to the field of sustainability, transformations or transitions where theories of power argue that accelerating effective transitions require expanding multiple pathways, which includes going beyond co-creating individual change. Narratives to also engage in more confrontational pathways among diverse societal actors.
so contributing of empirical evidence for this idea. This paper today reports findings from a national study exploring how civic food actors are collectively reimagining what a better food food system might look like in response to multiple crises
in order to inform directions for policy making around sustainability transitions in Australia.
So in this paper, I want to unpack how these narratives of food futures can be understood through the lens of large systems, change, contributing new insights for theory and practice in this interdisciplinary space of sustainability transformations.
All right. So, beginning in 2,019, I've been conducting a national study to explore the ways in which food networks, envision, envisage, and work towards more just and sustainable food systems. This research has engaged over 100 participants from community food networks, including, but not limited to small-scale producers, alternative distributors, community gardeners, food charity representatives alongside government and advocates
in interviews and participatory workshops with the aim of co-creating these community-led visions of food justice in Australia.
So we asked people through a variety of methods, and I should have point out my abstract was very ambitious. I said I would give you a rundown of the methodology which I won't do beyond this slide. but we use lots of different methods, and we combine in particular participatory futures, thinking and visual methods with the theory and practice of food Utopias
to explore how people are thinking what a food better food system might look like.
So 4 main methods of data collection shown here to construct a series of Utopian storylines for reclaiming food economies and addressing systemic injustice. So he is interviews, case studies, workshops, online discussions between 2,019 and 2,023 right during when Covid was happening. So we did. We ended up shifting a lot of this methodology online. But we did do some of this workshops and work face to face in Brisbane.
But one of the main aims here has been to engage directly with civic actors around their visions by putting food justice very centrally in our discussions about hunger, food, poverty, and systemic issues, such as race class and gender when talking about the problems and solutions to food and justice in Australia. So this has resulted in the articulation of 4 complementary but different fair-food futures and associated pathways to action based on food justice.
So in this paper, and very soon I will. I will talk a little bit about those 4 scenarios. But what I want to do in this paper is zoom in on what each of our scenarios tell us about how sustainability transitions can occur.
So within the broader field of sustainability transformations. There are many theories on how transformations towards sustainability gains scale from niche to mainstream.
So these generally agree that accelerating effective transitions require expanding multiple pathways.
Actors seeking to accelerate transitions towards sustainability, need to first engage in approaches that involve a wide number of actors engaged in social, technical and political activities and citizen food politics are part of these activities. So within that literature, some of you might be familiar around transitions theory, there are 3 kind of levels that are often discussed, that niche level up to regime level and up to a landscape level of overarching
the overarching environmental society values and beliefs that we shape those formal rules and infrastructures. But across these theories they've been critique for paying insufficient attention to the role of conflict. Antagonistic forces and power dynamics.
So within this field, I'm going to turn to a large system change theory, because this expands the range of pathways necessarily to accelerate sustainable transitions beyond co-creating change to include 4 types of change strategies. So I'm going to talk about those a little bit more in just a moment.
but in general large system change theory argues transitioning. These complex adaptive systems requires change agents to develop approaches that reflect diversity, that address different system levels and sectors and include multiple initiatives and multiple pathways.
All right, let's go to here. So very briefly, hopefully, I'm going to have time for all of this today, I think I will. I'd like to show you a little bit about the 4 scenarios, and this is going to be in the form of a short video. Hopefully, it was going to play for you
fair food futures, engaging civil society and policymakers in transforming food systems.
This. their food futures brings together over 100 people from small farms, community food organisations, food charities and social enterprises as well as local government representatives, food justice advocates and policy experts to design a series of fair food, future scenarios.
Each scenario is a vision of food, justice, and how to get us there. Let's explore each scenario.
The long table.
In this scenario everyone has a seat at the table, and we have achieved 0. Hunger. Food is healthy, local, and affordable, and policymakers understand that reducing hunger goes hand in hand with reducing poverty.
Food movements successfully combine with other movements, such as climate, justice, gender rights, and indigenous sovereignty, to create a fairer society. social housing, schools, hospitals, community centers, and prisons all have their own gardens that produce healthy and often free food for those most in need. Food consumption has shifted away from private market mechanisms like large supermarkets towards cooperative models like community markets and bulk buying groups.
Food charities have moved away from redistributing food waste towards a focus on healthy consumption, dignity, and enjoyment. They have joined forces with other social movements to advocate for systemic solutions.
Everyone now enjoys a sustainable diet their food in the city.
In this scenario food is a common good. Communities are reclaiming the commons by expanding sustainable food production. In cities Broadacre crops and livestock are still based in rural areas, but fruit and vegetable production now takes place in the city.
Fruit trees, herbs, and vegetables are grown in unused urban spaces on verges, in parks, backyards, and balconies, and, of course, in community gardens and urban farms.
governments, businesses and communities work together to establish local procurement Policies council regulatory barriers have been reduced or removed to facilitate this shift.
Food waste is valued as a source of important nutrients to be returned to local soils. As food quality increases, people buy less, and very little is wasted in the home
community. Waste management. Solutions, such as local compost hubs, make it easy for all residents, even apartment dwellers, to avoid sending compostables to landfill
youth, food, and climate action.
This scenario describes a future where young people are educated, empowered and involved in determining the future of food. Healthy local food in this scenario is produced by young farmers who enter farming and remain in the sector with the support of schemes that improve land and resource affordability.
Young people have also become a powerful driver for ethical consumption. Vacant and publicly owned. Land is used for food production and revegetation, particularly in urban spaces, private and government ownership of land decreases and collective ownership models with indigenous sovereignty and land management practices at their heart become more common.
Young farmers are at the forefront of more ecological food production practices with a shift towards agro-eological methods, small-scale farms, local production, closed-loop farming and the growth of resilience and climate, appropriate crops.
Technology for the people.
technology is created for and regulated by the people rather than having to abide by the expectations of large retailers. Farmers have the power to set their own standards.
Many choose to sell directly to consumers, or via localized and often digital distribution networks, especially in smaller towns. Distributors still have a role to play in cities, but their power in setting prices and standards is greatly reduced.
There is some role for global supply chains. But there is better integration of local and global solutions via human scale technologies. First, nations, people are more closely involved with technological development of the bush food, industry and benefit directly from this growing field.
Technologies and their IP are openly shared free to affordable and are accessible to all, regardless of citizenship.
technology and innovation are transformed into a common good that fully supports a de-growth economy.
She
okay, great, all right. That was just a little a snapshot from the project of the video that we made last year. But what I would like to do now is turn a little bit away from these visions themselves and into thinking about well, what what can they tell us about? And obviously these are Utopian visions for the future, and they haven't fully come about, but they are made of experiments that are happening today. And we used in a an
a technique called seeds of change or seeds of transformation where we took these experiments, and sort of imagined, if we followed that through what might be needed to make that future come to life.
So what I'd like to do now is turn to large systems, change, to think about what? What are the kinds of actions that might that might need to happen. For some of these scenarios to come to fruition
and large systems change. Theory provides us with an understanding of these multiple pathways that we need for transformation towards sustainability.
and it emphasizes narratives, goals, values that give coherence and direction across a range of initiatives.
This this approach adds an individual level of analysis, so helps us to think about how people can reorient their behavior to accelerate sustainable transitions transitions.
but also expands this range of pathways that are necessary. So in our Lsc. There are 4 types of change strategies that are likely to be used when different actors by different actors, when change is driven by common goals. The strategies differ in terms of how power is used by change, agents to destroy or create new existing social practices and rules of the game, as well as the extent to which they can use confrontation and collaboration.
So in large systems change, there are 4 kind of approaches to doing this one can be co-creating change. So this is where we see that collaborative and emergent strategies amongst stakeholders where people are working together and co-creating.
we see it a technique of supporting change. Where dominant actors can use their power already to develop new initiatives, they can apply their resources unilaterally to unilateral, to move change in a direction they believe in.
We see a strategy of forcing change. So this is directly creating alternatives, confronting power structures by inventing and demonstrating those new approaches.
And then the fourth strategy can be doing change. And this is a kind of the more radical approach to making change happen. So breaking through power structures through confrontation campaign strikes and the like.
So what I've done, what I want to do in the last couple of minutes that I've got left is, apply this four-piece framework to those scenarios and to have a look and see, do we see these 4 types of strategies for change playing a role? And my answer. You would be, yes, we do so. If we look at the long table and fair food in the city, we can see strategies of co-creating change being discussed there. So, on one hand, we can see alliances between food charities, producers, and social movements, and as an example of co-creating.
or where citizens are doing town planning hand in hand with government and local councils becoming more powerful.
we can see the strategy of supporting. So, for example, we see a strong sustainable Diets discourse supported by public health and government, and already powerful interests in this space in fair food in the city. Thanks. We see, that this kind of support through Government-led local procurement strategies, through zoning and taxation and through pricing mechanisms.
We also see the strategy of doing so for the long table. They're talking there about these local supply chains and social enterprises who address food, poverty and affordability. So here's really the space where we see those experiments already happening now through the sharing economy, through swapping and bartering outside markets, so doing economies differently, and fair food in the city talks about this in terms of doing home food production, cooperative distribution models, such as Csas, circular economy and urban farms.
and then forcing. We also see examples of that in both of those scenarios. So we see solidarity across radical, social, and food justice movements and the right to food or forcing and fair food in the city is talked about. I think we can see that we're through this idea of reclaiming the Commons taking free food in public spaces, things like gorilla gardening.
If we turn to youth, food and climate, action and technology for the people, I also can apply this lens. We see co-creating examples where youth are participating in democratic structures, with local councils and in policy making, or where indigenous landowners are seen as decision makers of playing a stronger role as decision makers.
Likewise in technology for the people we see co-creating through community-owned technology, our IP and data and co-investment in ecological stewardship.
We see strategies of supporting in terms of land affordability via social financing, ethical production and consumption codes and certifications. So here are things that we see happening already where there's quite significant power. But these are playing that role in supporting a change
and technology of the people we see supporting in terms of government and first nations ownership of bush food industry, and where agricult can become a public asset through shifting support, through government regulation.
In youth, food, and climate, they talk about doing through an ethic of care based on indigenous food, sovereignty, finding on other people's land, through doing of agri-eology and closed-loop farming.
and in technology for the people we see doing in terms of circular economy that reduces over production beyond food waste and building new networks in that space.
And then, finally, we come to forcing. So in youth, food, and climate action. Participants talked about boycotting things like ultra-processed foods and supermarkets, decoupling food from fossil fuels in radical climate action, and in technology for the people we saw forcing in terms of rejecting Gmos. And and this kind of radical think, rethinking of de-growth values and activism
right? Almost finished.
So in in summary. This study combines futures. Thinking with large systems, change theory to provide or think through some new insights at the nexus of sustainability transitions and food system redesign.
So our scenarios here are as examples of shared narratives about how power might be redistributed in future food systems, and they incorporate all of these strategies to varying degrees. So we see creating practical changes, such as through sustainable food procurement, food policy councils
combining with strategies of collaboration between civic actors and diverse social movements, multi-level, multi-actor solidarity, and more inclusive approaches of collaboration with first nations. Youth, women, and those who are most hungry, and an emphasis here is on participatory governance and participatory forms of collaborative governance.
We see destruction of values such as tech, fix land, privatisation, and food is a commodity and a shift towards a more radical interpretation of degrowth or circularity, ecological boundaries, and the right to food that can lead into new institutional forms. We see confrontation taking the form here of reclaiming the Commons, either legally or illegally rejecting a charity approach to reducing hunger and decolonisation and food justice approaches.
So I argue here that it's this combination of 4 different types of strategies that are going to get us to these new alternative food futures, not one or the other, but a combination of these 4 change strategies. Thank you. 250,
and you can find out more here.
Thanks, Kia. That was a fabulous overview of some brilliant work. And I really love the way you've gone beyond co-creating to forcing. And you know a lot of over the last couple of days some people have been saying, you know, maybe it's
maybe this Utopian vision of small-scale farming and civic food networks is a little bit beyond the pale. Maybe we need to move on from that. But your your work demonstrates that it's very much possible, alive and well. But it is this multi-pronged strategy which you describe so well, so
a question from the floor. Please.
Donald. come up to the mic, please.
Well, thanks the home. Thank you very much. That was really amazing. I really found inspirational and and engaging.
It just is a
as a scenario, would you? So would you? Could you make the suggestion where the impetus might like. If would the impetus life for this to be manifest in a
go to scale? Would it have to come from.
you know, corporations and governments.
you know, because, you know, you don't want to be too
just to in about it. I think you know those organizations want overall. Well, being, too, for people in their own way. would would, if if they, if they would, you suggest that they would be the main drivers of
this, and if they would be on board. Then the kind of the grassroots?
yeah, organisations and communities, etc. Would.
you know, would be able to to manifest that vision?
Yeah, look, that's a good question, I guess, to as one short answer, this study really focused on civic food actors, and we did not engage with those big corporate actors. But we did engage with government and asked the question, Where were those intersections for kind of supporting these kinds of visions, and what would need to change in terms of government action. And so this question of Where do the big corporate sit? And and particularly where it's about resourcing as well? If you look at how much resources behind this.
So I think the answer could be, yes, there, there might be a role. But I think that what we're arguing here is for a much stronger voice in decision making and governance of these civic food actors, and without that sort of replicating a food future where we have kind of the power relations as they stand now aren't going to get us to these kind of futures, because shifting power is is really at the center of these scenarios.
Yeah, thank you very much. Yeah.
I think, Rachel, you had your hand up next. She's pretty quick.
Thank you, Kia. That was a really really wonderful presentation, very inspiring. So I've got a couple of questions, I guess one just
well, probably one question follows on from the last one, which is you talked about influencing policymakers and working with. And you say a little bit more about how you've done that. And also you mentioned collaborating code helping with first nations peoples. And I'm wondering the extent to which you've been able to do that in this project which is something that we're struggling with ourselves on our own project.
Yeah. So if I answer the last question first, we same thing. We also, I would say, we also struggled to engage directly with first nations, and certainly not with Many organizations. within the study. Obviously, we had some participants who were first nations people, but it wasn't designed to target first nations to specifically. So, I think. Yes, that is a limitation
and a lot of the content around first nations. Sovereignty was was really coming from people who were engaged in that space, asking exactly that same question, how do we engage? Much more better? How do we do this better engaging with first nations people. So I think that is something in the study that we didn't probably do so successfully in terms of engaging with policymakers. I think I've had a few different strategies
throughout the actual generating of the data and the future scenarios. Yes, people who worked in policy and local government in particular, were part of those discussions at different times, so their kind of perspectives could could feed into this also in terms of with this. What we've done with this animation in particular, and the small policy brief, that you see here. My aspiration was that we would be able to use this in some forums directly with
policy people as well, to kind of grab that imagination and lead on into a discussion. And I think that's kind of still continuing, I think this is something that's ongoing. this later this year. I hope so. The work and I didn't talk about it specifically, but it does engage with the UN Sdg. Agenda, which has also been
somewhat, very flat in Australia, and I was hoping that this work would kind of feed into this discussion at a national level around Sdgs and 0 hunger. We haven't really seen that I'm hoping to go in New York later in the year. I'm taking my animation with me. I'm seeing what I can do. It's a work in progress. But I think yeah, short answer, not as much as I would have liked. Yeah, thanks, thanks.
Thank you so much, and thank you for the excellent questions. It is quite amazing that, as you said, right to food is not embedded in legislation yet. Why, you know that in itself is an example of where we need to make radical change. So we'll move on to our next presenter. I'm delighted to invite Chul Ku to come to the stage
visiting from Korean University College and smart enough to
Okay.
fantastics. You're going to give us insight into what's happening in the next host. I like to welcome all of you for the next conference in. So in 2,027.
well! I think
Some some of you may have
recognize. The title of my presentation has changed a bit compared to the abstract.
What would that be
the year when I was submitting? It was 2,011 to 2,022,
and I realized that over the weeks past couple of weeks that
there has been so much, so many things going on still. and I'm still trying to grasp.
What is happening in soul? Completely Confused. disorganized. and angry. Yeah.
I think I remember that. I have given similar talk about
4 years ago in Brisbane, when we had every foot network conference. Right? That's there was very happy story. That was 3 until 2,019 to 2,020.
but a lot of things have happened, and I'm trying trying to conceptualize and make a model of political sociology, if you will. But still I have so much
stuff in materials! But I haven't really conceptualized or theorized.
But before I throw my material to you I will try to. Very, but because we have a limited time, I'll try to give us some background and some of the value of variables that I would like to focus on.
I think this is not only academic issue, but also very political issue. Just last week, there was a Korean Sociological Association meeting, and I have organized a session
on Korean. Sole foot policy the restructuring of Salford policy.
there were about 10 sociologists and economists. There was about 40. Ngos! Persons who were very angry about what is going on. And the farmers actually because
one of the main idea of sole food governance has been direct network, direct relationship between Seoul.
the district actually district of Seoul, that is, there about 25. But out of 25 district 13 districts participate in direct
provisioning of food food with the 13 local government, local farm areas
and the city of Seoul, the mayor, actually, and this the authority of Seoul has been completely eliminating, and that was due actually the thirtieth June. This. with maybe a day after tomorrow. Right? Yeah. And
since there has been so much this resistance by the farmers organization
not very strong, but there is significant.
and some sociology, real sociologists and Ngos. They have extended
the deadline to end of this year. So what's what that? What would that mean would be something that we have to wait. So it's a political issue.
And one of the main questions that we throw at the session last week was.
Not only criticizing the the changes from more progressive social policies to market oriented policy, emphasizing the business and profit, and so on.
but also, What can we do about this very big change as a small actors? So what is to be done? coating Lenin was a very important question that we were making some strategies and tactics. So that's something that I would like to emphasize political issue.
Not only academic. Yeah. Another is more kind of theoretical, as I will be throwing my like a case to you.
Some of the important variables that I would like to.
in my mind and in your mind as well, is this whole process of so very progressive food governance. It has a kind of life cycle
from social movement, social movement
in the 2,009, 2,010 for
Free Lunch program for elementary school and middle school and high school. So it was led by many mothers.
and then it was
developed into political issue at the national level between the progressive and more. Neoliberal forces!
And this kind of social movement
very Fortunately developed into an election which led to the This victory of the progressive Governor, a city mayor in 2,011. This is the year that was everything's begun. So social movement has been institutionalized.
At the city. decrees and acts and all kinds of programs and structures developed department structures within the city. So it has been. institutional is institutionalization.
And in that process
many. And your persons and experts has been participating, participating in the the decision making process of food politics in the city of Seoul.
and there was As I was participating as a bridge between the Mayor and the Ngos, I was kind of like. Sometimes I kind of like thought that was, is this real? I mean what we say, or what many citizens say can actually be developed into policies, and that we had a 10 Year Plan 5 year from there was in the Law City law that should be done that way.
So this institutionalization is a keyword as well, and the leadership the leader, the mayor, as I observe
what's cool going on now, now, the leaders, this mayor is so important
so called, kind of traditional literacy. I don't know. I mean as a sociologist, I tend to emphasize organizations and these tissues and so on. But sometimes the individual individual leadership styles also plays a very important role.
And so.
and also in this process, I think, some number of sociologists and economists have been participating and actively played a role in this process.
And
what we had learned in the socially food and our culture. The terms like for democracy, food, governance, foot, right, and so on, have become quite a common term even among the government staff who are in this project. And So what we, as a sociologist can do actually have been making some differences changes.
But again, what's happening over the past couple of years?
that's not very.
I mean, it's quite depressing now. So what can you do about this new changes again? So that's kind of general background and main message that I would like to deliver.
So I have like, probably 10 or minutes. Right? Thank you. Yeah. I'll try to do. Go as quickly as possible.
Well, At the core of
oh, really, okay. At the core of this all debate and discussion and struggle is so called urban, rural, coexistent public meal service.
That's as I said.
13 districts of Seoul are directly connected to local farming areas. So this urban rural coexistence and this food. This grains and vegetables will be delivered to Each district within Seoul for the day, care center kindergartens and elderly housings
for free. That is, the government pay.
not not the the
the a childcare center, and so on. So actually, this model has won the word in 2,000 that Milon packed a word, and we were so proud and very proud. And we have this annual international conference. Urban city politics, actually care was invited to give a talk a couple of years ago, I think right, and and at the right is the leader, the the mayor.
Tagu, and soon. So it's like this whole process, from 2,011 to 2,023 now involves the rise literally rise in decline of Pagu and Zoom, and the decline and rise of another person. The bayer now uses a hole, so it's very ironic.
and A pagan soon passed away. A couple years ago
the the big step was put in in 2,017, as there there was a new mayor emphasizing citizens, and because the mayor, how once it was formally and
a lawyer. But at the time, social activist. we have this program called Soul Foods, Massive Plan 2,020, and then
in 2,000. 2,019. We made the these Ngos and People's commits for food for Citizens Committee
and the
theft of the Government together at form this 10 Year Plan 2030, foot, soul food strategy. I was a chair of this working group for making the first threat of this strategy.
and then
so which emphasize actually.
the college and happiness and community, in addition to health, security, and coexistence.
This was the kind of like final Visualization of our plan that we want to have sustainable Food City.
you know. There's a but on a bicycle, and the first citizens who will be sitting. They'll be driving. that there is a governance, and the values on the front will happiness, healthy security, cuiser blah blah blah on the the the back. tires! You have
the system out from the sea to the food, so-called food waste, and so on. So very happy. Yeah.
And then, yeah, this is the
another. Don't you be award? In 2,011 there was decline of this, the previous mayor.
It's kind of interesting and funny, because he said that he was against free lunch program for kids. and there was fierce debate within the city and the politicians as well, and he said that well, we will have the referendum.
If the people said, No, I will resign.
He didn't really think that this would happen, but actually he lost the referendum, and so had he had to resign to keep the word, and so declined to always say whom. And then the the the mayor, the progress Mayor Hogwinson became the mayor and
it. The the first document that he signed was that this.
a program free lunch program for the kids and nowadays free lunch program for for all, from
kindergarten to a high school is free, and also it has become somewhat organic. So a significant portion of the meal has become organic
a question.
and this was a legal I I was participating in the making of the the city Act, and so on.
And this is the the of how
the urban real quick. This program is connected between the districts of the the city and and the
local producers, and so on.
Okay.
I'll try to wrap up.
Okay, this is something that I would like to kind of introduce. Briefly.
as I mentioned that our 2,030 food sofa threat was 2,030 was very important.
The food strategy 2,030 was through this kind of very intense preparation.
By working together among like city staffs
and the Ngos and so-called people, foot City Food Citizens, committee.
and some
academic expert, and so on. We have prepared. After 9 long 9 months of preparation, we have made the sole for strategy.
And then By law! Under this strategy the city had to prepare Five-year Plan, including budget, and also yearly. Plan! For with the budget and personnel, and so on. So everything was ready.
It was to be announced in the fall of 2,020,
and then there was a death of London Park in July, and everything began to change.
and then they became this backlash from the city assembled. It was very macro-politics played a very important role. So even though we had this some
degree of institutionalization, we have some like structural changes in the department to bring in all kind of like progressive policies. When macro-politics began to change
at the city level or the City Assembly and the Mayor and the mayor.
We realized that there was kind of like a big retreat from what we had over the past, maybe 9 years.
So, and you under you Leader Osay wound so ironically, the one who had declined in 2,011 was elected
in 2,021 as the mayor.
So he had this memory about, you know, free lunch program, and so on. And also he's very like market-oriented, neoliberal person, I would say, as a personality.
he really hated
terms like citizen democracy, participation.
And these terms have been studied, deleted in so not not just food politics policies, but also other programs and policies.
Elitist professionalism with city government staffs are making secretive decisions, including eliminating urban rural coexistence program.
and also there has been restructuring of city government departments.
and the previously emphasized a college or Co. The coexist participate engagement of citizen have been eliminated. and now more kind of
traditional emphasis on food, safety.
And now that has been kind of a major change and food strategy 2,030 that I have mentioned, which was prepared after long efforts.
have completely disciplined. They don't talk about it. So there's nothing going on. I mean, they didn't say anything. So that's what.
So happening
finally, yeah. And so my kind of as I mentioned earlier, before, I present my material, I said.
the Mac.
from this case, I think. I've tried to conceptualize. Macro-political structure was a very important variable in this process. Between 2 major parties, the People Party and Democratic party at the national and city level.
Historical contingency, the public referendum, death of the mayor, and the reelection of mayors, and so on. This kind of individual variable also was important. I think the role of cars. Also, I think, as a academy, I kind of like, think that. Well, why, what we do as a research actually can make a change at the politics and policies. But at the same time, as I have been observing with the past couple of years.
there is something that I became kind of lethargic that Can we
can it? What can we do? What can I do? We do something. We try to do something, but Not much. I realized there were all of the Ngos.
There had been actively involved, but now they, as under the name of governance. Many Ngo has been become part of the whole engine whole system.
maybe sometimes over industrialized. There was some critic about that, but now the Ngos has been kind of kicked out out of this whole program and policies! And they became now but much more resistant and hostile. But what I realized, especially when we had this.
So session a week ago in the Korean Historical Association in Korean. Royal social socialization is that
many of them have lost
their spirit of struggle because they have been so used to working together with the city and the staff for 10 years.
and They became kind of paid staff of the Ngos, and so on. So it's oh, my, I'm just throwing this concept. But
okay. And also I realized that this legal system law acts are so very important. It's generalization. And and always the last minute they rely on laws. And so now they have been kind of revisioning the laws at the National. City of politics level.
the power of city employees they have, they have invisible, they can. They cannot make change, but at least they can
delay the change or stop the changes.
okay, okay, let me. I will just stop there. Okay, I' to. I think I have just thrown so much. But no conclusion. Yeah.
thank you, Chilkou. And I must say that is a fabulous forensic examination of what happens on a metropolitan level. And I think that that is such a big question for all of us. Where's the where are the points of intervention where we can get traction on some of these issues. And of course, cities, that city level and that local government unit is is very important here as well. We're constantly thinking that tension between local state, Federal.
How do we make it happen? And from below appears to be the answer. Until you have these obstacles
like elected officials? Who are your champions disappearing? Okay? One question from Andre.
Thank you. That was a fascinating presentation. my question is you're talking about this 10 year period of transformational change sounds like so many wonderful things happening. And the sudden retrenchment of all of those gains. My question is, has there been some kind of mobilization from from social movements, or citizens or others? Who are, you know, losing these these, these gains or these victories?
Has there been any kind of mobilization to try and fight, to, to keep these things in place?
that much, actually. some of those who are have been involved in this program. Rural urban food. cohesions program. They are reacting to this. But general public.
you're not aware of it. and also many mothers.
I mean that the those who sent their children to the day care center.
They know what's going on, but what the city government is saying that they kind of individualize in this program. They said that we will subsidize some of the coast.
but not through this kind of public system, but through, so they would say, the Take care, Daycare Center to not to participate in this program that has been going on, but to individually purchase
from the supermarkets, and so on. And then the government. The city governments say that they will subsidize
the the the kindergartens and daycare centers. So this kind of individualizing process had made well, mothers who said, well, As far as the government subsidizes and provides some support for what the children eat. That's okay. no matter whether we have. Whether the the So kindergarten or decay centered rely on
the tradition. A previous public provisional program or
supermarket that could be more
convenient if you will. so I know the when we had this session, and we when we discuss what is to be, what need to be done? What what can we do? And so on. One of the main conclusion was that try to make this mothers involved on this issue. Not just the this Ngos or stuff that we've been working in this program, but also because mothers, I mean, these
mothers are very important in this process. Because from the very beginning of this program When there was social movement in 20 to 2,000 9 and 10, the free lunch program. The mothers put it very important as a social movement to actor. But now they're not really. And maybe we think that If the mothers of this little kids
our understand what's going on.
And so we want to emphasize negative effect effect of the
proposed program by the city. And they said that they will be so supporting so financially. In the the individual. kindergarten of day care centers, and we were trying to tell the mothers and people that. what is the meaning of this with for the children's meals? Yeah.
thank you. We might keep the rest of those questions till
at the end of everyone's presentations. But thank you so much
fabulous. And now it's my pleasure to
welcome Kim
me to the stage, representing quite a big team from Virginia Tech.
So thank you very much.
thanks to her.
Sorry
fabulous.
Thank you.
All right.
All right. Good morning.
Nice to be here with you all I I am. I'm Kim Naomi. I'm she her my pronouns, and I'm representing a community of scholar scholars and community organizers. Across our region.
At this I am coming from Virginia Tech. I am a professor in the College of Agricultural Life Sciences. I'm also the director of our Center for food systems and community transformation.
just want to recognize that we have a team here, both graduate students of other faculty and community organizations. But we also are representing a a network that's actually going to be speaking about the Roanoke food shed network. And we are a leadership team. So this is not just my words. These are words of a collective
sorry about that. There we go.
So what I'd like to, so speak, to today is it's kind of crossing some areas around regionalization and regional food systems as as both concept and programmatic opportunities. I think for many of us, it's probably not necessarily a new concept, particularly from native indigenous perspectives. Regionalization is is far from new. But we want to think about how regionalization is is is challenging some notions of localization and challenging our notions of how do we?
How do we imagine different ways to to organize our food systems? And so I just want to kind of start with that kind of speak about some of the theoretical places, and how our our community is expanding, that with certain concepts
and move into the the Roanoke food shed network as as this space of of political experimentation. And think about the ways in which narratives and storytelling is the seed bed for that conductivity and that opportunity for network development. So it'll be some theoretical, mythological, and some if you will findings, and we'll see where we go from. There. I just want to acknowledge this this notion
of regionalization. There's there's so many different ways we can expand on that. I'm not going to speak to all these points I only have 15Â min, but I want to. I want to emphasize the importance of kind of challenging these notions of the centralizing and technical, rational discourses.
the kind of flattened way we see each other, the way we perform our work in communities. If we continue to think and do a certain way that has been guided by these technical, rational, essentialist. You know, ontological realities, then we will continue to distill that into flatness and not really think about the complexity which really does exist.
Now, that may be something we may agree or disagree on. But what is challenging is actually to perform that. And so we're going to think about it. How do we emphasize generative ways in which we work together and not extractive ways? And so the way we're thinking about that is through sorry.
It's through utilizing Agro ecology as knowledge perspectives. So more of a epistemic, ontological
intersection with what people think of as agricology, as science movement and practice. And so for that, we think about Agro ecology. It's it's used quite a bit. We we think we know what that means. It means many things to different people and different spaces around the world where what we're really interested in is
if you're someone like myself, who studies, you know, food and agriculture, and, like many of you, we think about rhizomes and mycorrhizing, as you know, ecological concepts, but they actually can be used as metaphors to think about the way we can shift this notion of our communities plant and soil communities, social, ecological, and cultural communities, nonetheless.
And so we weren't really interested in how? for many of us. I I love the idea of, you know, rhizomes and and mycorrhiz. And whenever I give a talk about ontological politics, the farmers in the room totally get it right. Rhizomes mycorrhizi fungi we absolutely understand. So I'm going to really rely on you all to be in that same space with me today. but really the notion of unearthing what is complex under it.
hidden under the surface, into our soil, into our communities, and to really focus on that criticalness around food systems, sustainability and resiliency.
So first, I just want to kind of frame what we mean by that. rhizomes. Think about Ginger. Think about bamboo. Things that are in some places are very contentious. They can be very invasive. But the idea that we want to think about rhizomes, that they're they're surprising. They're multi-directional, and they're abundant. And they surprise if you use the the notion of the loose and guarantee which I'll show in just a second. Maybe I'll just go to that.
They have multidirectional spaces. Where do we? Where do we enter into a relationship in a region. What is the region? Who defines the region? And the idea that there's a line of flight that can be surprising.
And it's a relationship that has not a fixed point.
and that can be really challenging. If you think about, how do we govern that? And, on the other hand, it's actually quite revealing that if we open ourselves up to the complexity, open ourselves up to the possibility
of relationship. the notion of regionalization becomes much more apparent.
We also think about the work around mycorrhizal networks. So mycorrhizal fungi, the symbiotic fungi relationships between roots and root structures across Agar Ecology in space in place and for this is really exciting, because this is the ways in which we actually grow relationships below the surface.
What we see in this room we have only one way to see if we look at it from a perhaps a linear perspective. But what are the relationships between all of us and the people that we don't see
what are the relationships that we have in our food system. If we don't acknowledge that we see and understand the relationships
to bring Ag. Or ecology. Knowledge production into the space around regionalization has been, you know, for us, been a way to to do our work here in what's called the Roanoke food shed network. And so I want to acknowledge that there are many, many organizations, civil society actors, farmers, racial justice organizers, art makers.
university faculty, local government. So food, charity organizations. And we even work with our hospital institutions in in the region.
There's a long story that I could talk about there if the Roanoke food shed network. I don't have time for that. It's another talk. I want to just acknowledge that we there's been work in the region. So this is this is the the Commonwealth of Virginia, which is in Central Appalachia, in the United States. It's about a 4Â h drive southwest of Washington, D. C. And the circle here, you see, is where we're talking about our
the counties of Roanoke, Salem, the city of Salem, in the city of Roanoke. So this is an urban rural connectivity. very much on design.
This is as part of the world that has seen both civil rights activity has seen lots of rural urban disconnect, as well as lots of opportunity for productive growth in in food supply, but also in extreme poverty.
and not unlike many other places of Central Appalachia, the United States.
But Rono Coffin is forgotten off the the political landscape. If you look to the your Your far right. That is the section of Virginia that often is considered the political center. And so once we get past Roanoke to the far southwest, which is another 4 to 5Â h drive
the the political connections are our weak.
and so the decision-making power is left to those who live there. Like many of us, however, this is a space where we've had to really work hard to grow. That regional connection.
It has both come easy and also has become very difficult to do so. But we were able to work on work together through several years of small grant funded projects, and this the opportunities to connect and learn from each other in the last 2 years we've had the opportunity, through a Us. Sorry United States Department of Agriculture, local food, promotion, grant that allowed us to plan a planning grant to really create this this network. And what is this network?
We've been using stochastic sociocracy as our guiding way to govern and to create our relationships. So if you're used to that kind of language where this is, this is our north star, there's no goals and objectives. We use stars as our ways to find our way through this
this little journey that we're on together. And this took this. This statement took probably perhaps close to a year to define. We are choosing to be an equitable and resilient food and farm system that produces health and abundance in the Roanoke region.
I could speak more to the governance of this work. But that's perhaps another talk. What I want to speak about is the functions of a network. How it plays in this and this regionalization, and really a network of networks.
Perhaps some of you are familiar with the work around network development. But what's really been important is that we're creating this way in which we can work together to think about what's surprising, what's underneath the surface. What is a way for us to constantly communicate?
Create right now, we're developing our, we're actually about to vote on our equity guidelines for the network. We're creating a new governance structure that really shows that we are co-linking relationships between different sectors across the food system, both always within urban spaces as well as within our rural communities. And these are spaces that are very ideologically, sometimes different from one another. And so it's been really interesting to think about, how do we
share resources? How do we network build. How do we actually engage across each other's spaces and cross different networks
hence?
But we believe the importance of storywork as praxis for regionalization. So I want to. What I want to do next few minutes is to really speak about how that is a seed bed for the ways we we can begin to really learn from each other.
build capacity, and also challenge what sometimes are very essential and maybe oppressive narratives that have been continuing to guide our food system strategies.
So I want to speak to now is from what Rachel Slocum has defined many years ago. Here seems like the notion of community food work. It's a very, it's a word. That's the language helps us think about where where we sit at the table. The food system table, and what we're trying to do is think about how we do community food work in multitude of spaces, that multidirectional approach to to regionalization so
farming systems, food, access, security, nutrition, ecological resiliency, and of course, fairness and justice tied in. But sometimes we get fixed. I do this. I'm a food charity person. I'm a farmer, and then, really, when you start when we start engaging and start really learning from each other's, you know, below the surface relationships, we start seeing that this, the ways in which community food work is imagined and performed is absolutely like
tightly engaged, and perhaps maybe entangled in ways that we were both surprised by, and can build upon.
So this has been a long, our our center for food systems and community transformation has a longer ongoing project called The Stories of Community food work in Appalachia.
This is an action research project that's been for about close to 7 years now, and we've been working. We've had. We've collected and co-created stories with our our collaborators and and colleagues and comrades, for we're probably close to like 70 different stories.
And this has been a project that's been working with the everyday experiences.
There's so much there's so much great research out there about how and why. But what is it to do the work?
What does it mean to do the work structurally in both by from the person's agency? How do we do the work to change the food system? Who is actually being asked to understand each other's experiences of the change in the food system.
So we're using a narrative inquiry as a mythological foundation to understand errors of both this process of reflection on experience, but also the reflectivity of telling one story and and actually listening to other people's stories. Most importantly, for this particular project we had about 20 different.
We we conducted 20 different interviews, storytelling interviews. We had multiple people, co-creating stories with each other. So it was not just myself. It was many people.
and that included folks at the university as well as in the community.
and this was actually tied to one of the classes. I teach the practice and politics of food, security and social justice. So graduate students were involved in this work.
and we co-designed prompts and transcribed, edited, co-enalyzed, archived, and have continued to share this work.
And so this is kind of the major question that we came up with like, how do we? How do food system actors perform and or imagine their community food work as part of this regional food system? So we explore past experiences. We focus on the instance of story that reflects their current understanding of reality, of of food work, and then conclude with these reflections on what the future holds.
So I want to move fast here. we can do a couple things we can read these stories and and engage for for sameness. How are people doing the work. What does it look like? We can understand what kinds of work they're doing
and understanding that rural urban connectivity which is really important. But I don't want to focus on that. Today, I want to talk about reading narratives for ontological unsettling, or the effect or the curiosity in which story can bring to us which really is about
exposing our imaginations and ways which we can then generate new possibilities. And when we do that we ask questions differently. What does care feel like? What does it look like? What does human dignity in the in the regional food system look like?
How do we understand collectivism and embeddedness.
So I just want to read a few. So if you just, I have more here to share. But I really appreciate this centering the voices in in our community.
So if you look at our long term climate projections for this region, that is the number one impact of climate change that are expected, that we are expected to see is increased, flooding and catastrophic flood events. What does that mean for farmers along streams and rivers on the hillside?
Suddenly there is going to be a landslide or a mudslide because of erosion factors that weren't an issue 10 years ago. Yeah. So there is no part of this system of the food system that doesn't touch.
but others part of the system.
We kind of have soiled these things out and siloed out these conversations a little bit. But you can't. I mean you. You have to get things done
or to achieve projects right? But all of these systems, like we're having water quality conversations. We're having climate change conversations. And we're having transit conversations. Or are we having waste conversations about things like recycling and composting?
All of that is equally embedded
in the food system.
It is hard to focus on much when we're talking about the people around you who are literally dying. We know that from our own Roanoke Police department. There have been 11 people shot and killed as of 2,020
and the same number this year. Now, plus 10 more since the year began, and we thought, What do we know? The evidence shows that a direct link between the lack of access to nutritious food, with a lack of access to food. Altogether, we found that this is a direct correlation with poverty, food, insecurity, and violence. I don't care where you go. I don't care what studies you look up they intersect.
So I wanted to further instigate, and a proactive
in healing way.
and I'll conclude with the narratives of this one.
That's the very essence of our community garden integrating to come together in unity.
We all have basic needs, food, shelter and clothing doesn't matter what the ethnicity is, your walk of life, what you have and what you don't have. When we unify ourselves, we become this social, active community. We have no idea of the impact that we have on people's lives. But we keep on doing what we think is a good positive thing. We bring people together for the good of us all.
We've been continuing to doing story work, not just through this archiving and sharing, but we're doing a public display of public events, we're using the stories of community food work. And we're actually doing a photo essay with the participants. We conduct story circles in our community events to continue to share, please these lived experiences.
We do online learning exchanges because this is a very large region, and we need to engage in ways in which are accessible.
We have conducted money, participatory decision, making workshops, and uplifted through many grants, the opportunities for farm dinner, theaters, and other showings of of public art, such as the residents of the land showing which is a movie
that was produced in the local region in more. So I just want to acknowledge this. This is part of a larger entanglement of of of art and story work, but the the focus on the story work, as praxis has been in our
in our opinion and our arguments here that it really helps wick it out. sorry. It helps us to humanize our wicked problems. We don't want to wiggle them.
That should be it. That should not be an understand, said stated point. It is hard to move people and move structure if we don't really understand their lived experiences. Empathy is powerful.
and to do so we understand multidirectional stories, and how they move us away. For these notions that are fixed, often oppressive and monolithic.
and moving towards systems, level dialogues that help us generate this and different kinds of imagination. For what a regionalization of a food system can look like.
And so for us, the praxis of storytelling for regional food systems is the seat bed to work through that regional complexity.
Thank you.
Kim. That was that was wonderful. You're a great storyteller that was actually, really beautifully told presentation. I love the way you close the loop with that feeding back to the community through all those events which is really important.
So who has a question? Oh, he was ready ready to go, Kim. Thanks. It was a. It was a fabulous presentation, but also a window into what you're doing in Virginia. And of course I flipped open your center for food systems and community transformation web page. And it's a really impressive thing that you're achieving there.
So kudos from down under to what you were teaching in Virginia, the the
in terms of your political project.
I love the way in which you characterized it through the idea of ontological, unsettling.
disrupting type, and for granted realities.
Virginia tech is a big X I college big egg and lifestyle college. how do you go with your ontological unsettling in your own university environment? Oh, what? A really good question! No, I'm really glad you asked that. I I get this a lot. Actually,
yeah, that's a How do I do? So well.
I'm not sure that to to answer your question directly, but I can offer you what we try to do. In our in our center, for example, we, we meet weekly. We try to
create a sense of collectiveness around ourselves in with with our work, and we created. We wouldn't do through several anti-racism, trainings and experiences, and we decided that we needed to be much more intentional like in the everyday, and that included creating what we call our cultural practices, which is a multi multi page set of practices that we uplift
every week we meet. And so we do check-ins. And we talk about.
how do we center ourselves where we are? How do we decenter ourselves where we are? And that means literally spending time, which is not technical and as a sure, is not rational to sit together, and we pull through our documents, and it's a way to guide us, so
each of us will go around the room, and we will uplift a cultural practice. One of them is
being critical of our place in a what is called a land-grant institution in the rural South, which is a predominantly and historically white institution.
So we have to name it. I think first of all is naming itself, naming where we are.
and then unsettling ourselves with that discomfort and challenging where we can. I I mean, that's where I think we're utilizing what privileges we have.
I can only speak for myself, not my team, but to to do so. They just promoting me to professors, so they haven't kicked me out so. But that being said. I think it's it's a really important question, because there's a lot of movement in in
the different. Well, we won't get into that necessarily. The we can get into the politics of the United States right now. Why not? We're at a conference. We're supposed to do this. But the idea that there's a lot of tension right now, particularly in rural parts of the of the Southern Us. Where the lot of actual activism and energy is, it's really it's there.
And how do we connect that work to the institutions who are afraid to sometimes open the doors to those experiences? And so a center like ours has been
perhaps one minor, very small way to make inroads, and our and our our Dean. I'll give them credit. They they've been really welcoming of the opportunities.
We'll just see what happens. So I hope I answered your question sort of on a I think about praxis a lot. And so I think about, how do we do it? But also just where we challenge. And so perhaps that might be a
conversational relation.
Thanks, Kim.
like it. Really quick. It's a little bit from what I'm Hugh taking from what you was talking about now. But I understand. At my university we do with, you know. Indigenous people are being brought in. Well, not brought into the fault, but there's lip service being paid to that. Anyway. You have to establish these kinds of relationships. I also understand that you cannot understand American politics without race. So I I'd looked up actually, when you were talking, Virginia Tech has 4.8 7 of its student population is black
that's hugely underrepresented across any. And it's an elite institution as well. So how do you then deal with in Southern or Southwestern Virginia, which I understand is just elected a Republican governor as well, you know. I I don't know if he's a Wacko Republican, like so many of the others in the South, but he is a Southerner, so that is, it comes from a certain time and place. So how is it that you incorporate? Say the the African American population in Virginia. I'm not entirely sure
that they would want to participate with you, and I don't know this. I don't know to you very well, but I don't know that they want to participate with you as a representative of a white institution
in these kinds of projects. That's fair, I can. Well, one is relationships just putting our time in building relationships with with people
in communities across the region. I think that's something that's it's been a commitment trust. That's just an obvious statement. But I think strategically, in terms of relationships. many institutions in the in the South of us have because of segregation, have 2 land grain institutions. We have an 1,862 Morale Act, land grant. We have an 18 nineties. Land grant. that is Virginia State University and Virginia Tech. As sister land, gray institutions.
we have built relationship, which is a. It's a historically black college.
We have built a a strong working relationship with what's called the Small Farm Outreach Center at Virginia State University, working explicitly with what's defined by the United States Department of Agriculture. It's historically underserved by race of farmers. And so in the last, I would say last decade, that has been our and my own personal work. And and beyond this, to center is working strict directly with Virginia State University resource, sharing, writing projects, part of this kind of work, this work.
to ensure that we are, in fact, connecting
with the conversation of race and agriculture.
and and through our center promoting racial justice activists through anti-racist trainings being paid for by the university, putting up the energy and and decentering maybe the university and putting forward the voices in the communities who are doing the work. So we have to do it through our actions.
I haven't honestly I haven't felt that has been so much as a challenge as perhaps working with indigenous and native communities. It's been a little more of a challenge. given
the politics with the Monica and Tutelo, which has been productive. But it's also been very contentious with the university.
That's a great question. Thank you.
Thank you.
Fantastic.
Now, our final speaker today has been immensely patient, and he's probably
it's probably up at an ungodly hour.
Welcome, Mario. Can you hear us?
Mario Coscarello: Yeah.
Mario Coscarello: Good morning. Thanks. A lot.
Wonderful. What time is it for you?
Mario Coscarello: And now I am in Argentina. It's it's 9 Pm.
Oh, 9 pm. You just about to have dinner, then, are you?
Mario Coscarello: It's okay.
Thank you. Mario
Mario Coscarello: mit Ctl, and thanks a lot of first to organizer and the for this opportunity. Can you see my presentation? We we can, if you could, just 150,
show us your full screen view, please.
Yeah, wonderful. Thank you.
Mario Coscarello: So thanks a lot. My name is Mario, and I am a researcher in the University of Calabria.
Mario Coscarello: But now, I'm working in Argentina. today, I present a part of an international research project
Mario Coscarello: and and
Mario Coscarello: in essentials experience of social and solidarity economy network of in Quebec, or as a Territorial Development strategy is a project funded by in all right zone, 2,020. In.
Mario Coscarello: In this project are involved that 3 university you need to Italian University in west of Calabria and Polytechnic, called Itorine of Torino and National University of Kilm, in Argentina
and
Mario Coscarello: there are, The the principal objective of the project are met. The incubator in compared with the characteristic in Latin America in particular, Argentina Brazil with your European incubator,
Mario Coscarello: and the second object to identify the factor that to contribute to the creation of incubators and the impact of the living better and the the it I am is analyzed. The European contest, considering this string in the weakness identify and
Mario Coscarello: realized a pilot study on an experiment study of incubator or university in
Mario Coscarello: we consider incubator an organizational that actively support the process of creating and developing new and Novi business through a series of service and resource offered either direct or through our network of partners. There are many type of incubators for this work. I focus on university in
Mario Coscarello: yeah, specific type of incubators.
Mario Coscarello: as I say, the project, is a a comparative research.
Mario Coscarello: between Latin America and
Mario Coscarello: context and European contest. with a focus of social incubator, and in particular university
Mario Coscarello: about the theoretical framework. I focus on open innovation, the sustainable interpretation of ecosystem and civic food networks, Then, I mean, I put this up. This work is that it may be the ability to coordinate the network of internal should be created among different actors in the territory that can determinate the emergence of physical form, of business and trade for sustainable local development
Mario Coscarello: about the method. and
Mario Coscarello: I'm I'm done. video of national online sub in Argentina, identification of case studies, same instructor and interview to focus group and participants of salvation.
Mario Coscarello: this is the
Mario Coscarello: the scheme of interview I, am
Mario Coscarello: I speak with the different actors of the territory.
Mario Coscarello: about the results. on the Russian. I said this, we are in in the 90 90 incubators, and we have a good response rate in in all regional and that are
Mario Coscarello: in about the legal form. the majority are public. About the organization. In, we can see the majority are for profit, organization, and all the on the collaboration in the ecosystem we can see the the most
Mario Coscarello: I call aboriginal in university, and in in and others in
Mario Coscarello: yeah. about the sector of better organization. The
Mario Coscarello: most most important sector is environment and animal protection. And
Mario Coscarello: so for the case, the the specific case study. I I choose national program.
Mario Coscarello: of social incubation. It it it is in Argentina and Bono Cyrus in the south of Bone, Cyrus in particular, in Kilimus. And you know
Mario Coscarello: this program was created in 2,015 in the in the, in the framework of the Secretary of University Station in the Us. In DC. A program of incubation and incubate social cooperation process.
Mario Coscarello: and the object is to to to build the organization dynamic of self management, democratic governance shared responsibility and promotion of associative.
Mario Coscarello: In this program there are 8, and the are 2 of our that must be moved to stakeholder. And
Mario Coscarello: and they work with. And
Mario Coscarello: yeah, the program involved with a lot of participants, a a member of the university teachers, students and and
Mario Coscarello: but also of the other of such economic actor in the terms and Confederation Federation of Social and Solidarity economy network and different organization one of they see I choose in
Mario Coscarello: for this work specific in Kubernetes.
Mario Coscarello: it's it's better started the activity in in 2,040, and with the I of contributing to the development of the economy with and create a network of producer and consumers and
Mario Coscarello: and
Mario Coscarello: in the, in, the, in, the, in the development. It's a of of universe stealing from a paradigm of Co. Construction and knowledge of knowledge oriented to the economic globalization. Such a technical innovation in the field of soldier and Soviet, I
Mario Coscarello: it' the the project, then
Mario Coscarello: response double reduce the dependence of family producer on the conventional market, and in consumer need to have access to healthy, fresh food and fair Pr.
Mario Coscarello: and
Mario Coscarello: the strong idea of the
Mario Coscarello: specific project of this
Mario Coscarello: in the role of the university in
Mario Coscarello: with the capacity to construction of socioeconomic and cooperation network
Mario Coscarello: contribution to the dynamic of social, organizational consumption in a process of participatory price. Construction
Mario Coscarello: generate a greater social disab disability of the economic environment in social and out the branches of solidarity marketing companies. And all this network between producer and consumer more closely the design management system in line with the characteristic I need of this type of.
Mario Coscarello: To contribute to building public policy that This full network can improve the food security in the full sovereign into your general population
Mario Coscarello: involved. That is, a 60 producer in a 95 consumer. Now.
Mario Coscarello: management teams and technician of the university.
Mario Coscarello: the most interesting activities are the assembler in which the
Mario Coscarello: are involved with the producer, group management teams, the member of, and then and the incubators consumer a consumer in this moment. we can see the contributing idea for strengthens reflection of the local contest and
Mario Coscarello: or say, the budget reflection on the local context
Mario Coscarello: accompanying and ensuring technological production planning. So I mean building the transparent price
Mario Coscarello: and I participate in to the of this moment. And I think it's very important. And the merge the role of the technician and the member of the Into better, you know, program.
Mario Coscarello: And
Mario Coscarello: this is a important experiment, in in fact.
Mario Coscarello: distributed 30 tones of fruit and vegetables per month. 3,000 and a a 800 also involved in in 19 5. Consumption now, not
Mario Coscarello: 400 and 4,200 bags of agricultural vegetable are distributed per month.
Mario Coscarello: this experience promote discussion on the form of production is distribution and consumption of.
Mario Coscarello: And we can see also is territorial market is constituted as a network of producer, consumer and technician and research that that carry out the process of solidarity in termination support for agricultural transition process
Mario Coscarello: process. And this network, all of the supply of faulty quality food at a a good price, covering both consumer and produce. Since the organized, the organizational
Mario Coscarello: price of the
Mario Coscarello: I don't all the results. But some discussion about the
Mario Coscarello: the role of the university. This in this speak, this pure. We can see the the role of the university in the Territory. There are 3 level collaboration consulting information or inspiration in in this case. This in particular
Mario Coscarello: project. I collocate on the left, in the, in the activity of of corporate, do co-production and collaborative activity in particular, with in a actual research. But you have to research and
Mario Coscarello: and it in. It is very important for the for the results of for the
Mario Coscarello: objective of the project. And in the
Mario Coscarello: I I think it's very interesting to see the capacity of the member of the incubator to create to working in between prevent actor public up to with them.
Mario Coscarello: actual research methodology. This is, the principal motivation to for the success of this particular.
Mario Coscarello: yeah.
Mario Coscarello: And this is I. I finished my presentation.
Thank you, Mario. That was excellent, and a really great insight into, and a very strong case to argue for, the role of the public university in being an anchor institution or contributing to this type of
well food business incubators which are a topic close to my heart. In fact, I'd like to talk to you offline some time about a Sydney one that we have. so I'd like to invite questions from the floor for Mario.
I have one
I'd like to ask about the process you went through.
and any challenges that you might have had
in getting commitment from university management for investment in this sort of research and this sort of community embedded program.
Mario Coscarello: yes, in in this particular incubators the researcher are involved with directly and work and exclusively for this project.
Mario Coscarello: So they didn't work in in teaching, but only work for the for the project.
Mario Coscarello: for the actual research activity in the Territory. So I think this is the most important. different, for example, with the European European incubators, you know.
Mario Coscarello: in Latin America there are the. It's it's station activity for the university, it it's very different. It's the mission or the center of all European and
Mario Coscarello: university.
Yes, in our experience you get funding for research, but you don't necessarily get funding for operational staff who you actually need to and they and need to earn a living wage if they' to help with the program.
A further question from Hugh in the audience. My name is Hugh Campbell, from the University of Otago in New Zealand. Thank you very much for your talk.
I am interested. You have published about the idea of recombining the
the idea of recombining food.
Can can you talk a little bit about the idea of the Commons and recombining as a strategy for food systems change.
I hope they're Christian legs.
Mario Coscarello: Yes, I think it's very important. They're all of the public university, like a missionary of chemist, and they work for
Mario Coscarello: for support there.
Mario Coscarello: to support the
Mario Coscarello: territorial actors and to create
Mario Coscarello: a big network. And the
Mario Coscarello: the commercialization opportunity for the producer and and support for agricultural production.
Mario Coscarello: And so this.
Mario Coscarello: I think it's very important and in the I think it's one of the most different from from from others in Cuba that I can
Mario Coscarello: serving this period.
Mario Coscarello: I don't know if it
thanks, Mario.
That's fabulous. Now we've got. We've got 2 more minutes before we wrap up.
Does anyone have a question for any of our other speakers. We haven't had much of a chance for a joint discussion. So many. Chris
paid Peter Andre. thanks 2Â min. Okay, I'll I'll ask a a question specifically of Kia and Kim, but anybody else can jump in, and it's about
Both of you are using stories. And you know, Kia, you use audio visual. So I I I'd love to hear about people's thoughts, on
how we share our research, often participatory research stories with audiences. Who are the audiences? What are the pros and cons of different modes of storytelling I'm really drawn to. I've seen the power of documentary filmmaking recently. But that's hugely expensive. So I just wonder any reflections on how we tell stories, and maybe this even relates to the sole example. You know in ways that have impact.
So who wants ticket?
The against me?
John?
Thank you. Yeah. So we so in the project in our project, we were telling stories as part of the methodology, so as part of using these future scenarios which we adapted, which were very participatory.
and as part of that methodology. We worked really closely with the Permit culture illustrator, and we use the illustration throughout design in the scenarios. So we would have a workshop one day where we sort of discussed it. We came out with like draft scenarios. I sent that information to the illustrator overnight or within a day. She created a kind of draft illustrations which we took back to the participants. And then we use that as a way to help. Imagine those stories to kind of bring to life we used.
We use lots of collaging and things like that. But then, as part of this project, we've created the animation. From those illustrations, because we had all these amazing, amazing illustrations. We thought, Let's do that. And that's a short animation that's online. And the aim there was really to connect back to those civic food networks first and foremost, to retell those stories to that audience who helped create them.
I guess I have visions that we might be able to use that in different forms as well, to make these stories accessible for policy people to kind of get a bit of buying before we got into the technicalities. But we also created a podcast last year. it's a 7 episode podcast we we we we structured it around the findings, the theoretical findings of food justice. We had 4 pathways. right. Some food to all food. yes.
right. Some food for all food is commons What were the other ones. oh, they right here. The the other ones were intersectional solidarity and care and resilience beyond crisis. We use those to structure our podcast and we topped entailed it with kind of people. Who were we? We? We had Costa, who was here in Australia, you know, Costa. He's a really famous gardener and gardener straight. Everyone loves him. We had him in our first episode. So we've tried to do this as a way to kind of reach more audiences as well.
and yeah, I think that that that they've been out modes. I I don't know. I think that the success of them and the impact is not something that maybe we see straight away as well. I think these stories take time to take root, and they contribute to building new stories as well, and they're only they capture pieces of people's stories as well as making one big narrative. So yeah, I think it'll take time.
Kim, would you like to add something?
I guess I can stay here.
Just to add to that that I I really appreciate those examples. we did use biography with the narrative storytelling itself. So
when we do our when we do the one on one. narrative inquiry interviews we primarily just do that where it's really intimate it's not designed to be a show, if you will. It's designed to be really but one on one with people. But then we have gone back with a videographer to create
a narrative inquiry video. And so we, someone has already told their story with that consent with that vetting, and had then also consented to come back with the with the camera, and then retell the parts of their story as they feel comfortable, and we have created that into a more of a, not a documentary which I appreciate. That's it would be a higher price tank, and that is it sometimes of a challenge. But we have worked with some really great very.
very community center
folk who are interested in in sharing stirring stories in primarily and in Virginia. So these are really kind of committed individuals, art makers who we can often find grant funding to to support that work. So those are actually on our website
and have put those on to with close caption onto the Internet through Youtube. We also, I really appreciate also having the opportunity to do photo essays, doing gallery walks, having opportunities to share the work in in pieces. These are really long stories. These are 2Â h, and we edit them. And they're really they take their time. And they're not designed to be just
put out into the world. When when one researcher decides already, it's really when when everyone agrees and concerns to that. So it does, having different forms, different sizes. And we're using this platform called mighty networks to
kind of like a mash up of Facebook and Twitter and other things that other people enjoy using. And it's a way to kind of share those pieces. So we had to break those down and further, further bits. But also in that personal storytelling we do. If you're familiar with story circles, which is a
long-term civil rights strategy to tell too many stories and circles, and really kind of the prompts that are derived from the larger stories become prompts there, and some online work I you were describing. I think we haven't done quite podcast yet. But we do sort of retelling a story online. So people have the chance to, you know, use their own voice. So that multiple form, I think, is really really important.
The commitment to that. Thank you, Kim. Now we're going to continue this fabulous discussion in the second part of this panel tomorrow afternoon. So please find it in your program. Make sure that you attend and please, for the last time put your hands together for our fantastic 4 panelists.
Kia Klu, Kim and Mario. Thanks for joining us. Mario. Good night.