Marit Rosol’s research while affiliated with University of Wuerzburg and other places

Zusammenfassung Zur Einzelhandelssteuerung entwickeln viele deutsche Kommunen Einzelhandelskonzepte. Eine Bestandsaufnahme der Lebensmittelversorgung gehört dabei inzwischen zu den Standardinstrumenten. Gemeinhin wird dabei ein distanzbasierter Indikator verwendet, der den Grad der Versorgung anhand von Luftliniendistanzen, z. T. auch realen Wegedistanzen zwischen Wohn- und nächstem Einkaufsort misst. Der Zugang zu Lebensmitteln wird jedoch über diese Distanz hinaus von weiteren physisch-räumlichen und sozioökonomischen Faktoren beeinflusst. Diese werden bislang kaum berücksichtigt. Ein unzureichender Zugang zu Lebensmitteln ist nicht nur aus gesundheitlicher Perspektive problematisch, sondern v. a. auch aufgrund der sozialen Funktion von Ernährung als wichtigem Feld gesellschaftlicher Teilhabe. Der erschwerte Zugang zu Lebensmitteln trifft insbesondere Menschen in prekären Lebenslagen, die ohnehin bereits in ihrer gesellschaftlichen Teilhabe eingeschränkt sind. In diesem Artikel stellen wir deshalb ein Modell vor, welches theoretisch fundiert die physisch-räumliche und sozioökonomische Einbettung des Lebensmittelzugangs umfassend und systematisch erfasst. Anhand ausgewählter Ergebnisse einer Studie, die mit eben diesem Ansatz in Bremen durchgeführt wurde, zeigen wir, von welchen Zugangsbarrieren Bewohner*innen zweier als gut versorgt geltender Stadtteile betroffen sind. Das vorrangige Ziel dieses Aufsatzes ist es, stärker für die komplexe Problematik des Lebensmittelzugangs zu sensibilisieren. Zudem benennen wir abschließend Handlungsansätze, mit der die Einzelhandelssteuerung und andere kommunale Initiativen den Zugang zu Lebensmitteln verbessern können.

The call for Just Food Futures reflects a desire to address social inequities, health disparities, and environmental disasters created by overlapping systems of oppression including capitalism, white supremacy, and heteropatriarchy. While many food movement actors share a desire to meaningfully tackle these issues, the richness and broadness of the food movement does not come without problems. The challenge of engaging with the intersectional nature of food-based inequities is apparent in the tensions between distinctive food organizations and movements and their sometimes conflicting goals, approaches, tactics, and strategies. This Themed Section brings together some of the contributions to and reflections from a virtual three-day workshop held in May 2021 in which we aimed at better understanding the differing approaches, the spaces in which they work, and where we explored collaborative possibilities within, between, and beyond food movements. In this Introduction we share reflections from the guest editors. To explore how food movements can collaborate in solidarity while not negating differences, we first identify key frictions within and between food-related movements and why they persist. Second, we suggest three strategic orientations that may help to explore collaborative possibilities within, between, and beyond food movements: Learning from other movements, fostering political literacy, and engaging with tensions productively. Finally, we consider the role and responsibility of academics within these conversations. We close with a call for (re)politization across difference and relate this back to strategies for broader social transformations.

Housing and food are both fundamental human rights and key social determinants of health. Yet despite their interrelations, housing and food are often treated separately by government bodies, policymakers and social movements. While both ‘food insecurity’ and ‘housing insecurity’ have been the targets of much research and activism in recent decades, we find less attention to their intersections, and to the potential for research and activism that centres these intersections in struggles to address their linked underlying causes. This scoping review aims to bring these two domains into closer conversation by further developing the notion of the ‘housing-food insecurity nexus’. We conceptualise this nexus as the co-occurrence of housing and food insecurity, often resulting from unaffordable housing costs (and the relative flexibility of food expenditure) in the context of neoliberal housing policy and market conditions where living costs outstrip incomes for many. The review highlights empirical and explanatory intersections and explores potentials for more coordinated action that can help to ensure people are able to realise both their right to housing, and to good food. The review is based on literature from Canada and pays particular attention to urban areas but bears relevance elsewhere. We first give empirical evidence for the housing-food insecurity nexus, and how this might differentially affect particular marginalised groups. Second, we suggest explanatory frameworks that broaden perspectives onto the nexus and particularly draw attention to underlying drivers of increasing food and housing unaffordability. Finally, we review proposed solutions, from short- to long-term. We conclude that necessary to the implementation of these solutions is a re-politicisation of the right to food and housing, uniting around the shared harms of many: renters, food producers, and movements for economic justice. We thus also examine the potential for cross-sector and multi-level partnerships that can leverage power in the pursuit of these twinned, essential goals.

The smart city is the most emblematic contemporary expression of the fusion of urbanism and digital technologies. Critical urban scholars are now increasingly likely to highlight the injustices that are created and exacerbated by emerging smart city initiatives and to diagnose the way that these projects remake urban space and urban policy in unjust ways. Despite this, there has not yet been a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the concept of justice in the smart city literature. To fill this gap and strengthen the smart city critique, we draw on the tripartite approach to justice developed by philosopher Nancy Fraser, which is focused on redistribution, recognition, and representation. We use this framework to outline key themes and identify gaps in existing critiques of the smart city, and to emphasize the importance of transformational approaches to justice that take shifts in governance seriously. In reformulating and expanding the existing critiques of the smart city, we argue for shifting the discussion away from the smart city as such. Rather than searching for an alternative smart city, we argue that critical scholars should focus on broader questions of urban justice in a digital age. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The COVID-19 crisis demonstrates forcefully that human health, the well-being of animals, and planetary health must not be viewed in isolation—and that they all depend to a large extent on the ways in which we produce, process, trade, and consume food. In this perspective essay, we argue for the centrality of food and agriculture to the epoch of the Anthropocene and why profound changes are needed more than ever. We close with some reflections on how the disruptions associated with the current pandemic also offer the opportunity for the necessary ecological, economic, and social transformation of our agri-food systems—toward healthy humans, animals, and a healthy and biodiverse planet.

For some time we have seen a shift away from direct marketing, a core feature and dominant exchange form in the alternative food world, towards a greater role for intermediation. Yet, we still need to better understand to what extent and in what ways new mediated Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) represent an evolution of or departure from core tenets of alternative food systems. This paper focuses on AFNs with new intermediaries that connect small-scale producers with urban end-consumers. Based on original research in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Calgary, we analyze three different types of mediated AFNs: one driven by consumers, one by an external intermediary, and one by producers. Our cases include non-capitalist, capitalist, and alternative capitalist economic practices as identified by Gibson-Graham. Conceptually, we base our analysis on the three-pillar-model of alternative agri-food systems, which we further refine. Besides comparing our cases with each other, for heuristic purposes we also compare them with an ideal-type model that adheres to core tenets of alterity in all three pillars. Our empirical analysis shows that intermediary organizations can bring important benefits and that mediated AFNs are in principle able to hold true to the core tenets of alternative agri-food systems. However, it is very important to develop models of democratic control and ownership as well as economic arrangements in which created value is fairly shared. Only then can the potentials of new mediated models be realized while the pitfalls of the conventional systems they seek to replace be avoided.

In heterodox economic geography, there is an ongoing debate as to how our economic, social, and environmental needs may be better addressed by organizing the economy differently, through more equitable and more sustainable practices. This calls for further studying and discussing alternative economic practices in a diverse economy. In this article, existing alternative economic practices within agrifood systems—specifically alternative forms of connecting producers and consumers—are explored, primarily on a conceptual but also an empirically grounded level. The article makes two conceptual contributions: First, it offers a comprehensive review of the literature and, with an emphasis on contributions by economic geographers, clarifies the meaning of alterity in alternative food systems. It reveals the hitherto limited focus on either alternative products or alternative distribution networks. In light of this limitation and the ongoing incorporation of characteristics of alternative food by conventional food industries for profit purposes, second, it extends those insights by reconceptualizing alterity—namely, by introducing alternative economic practices as an important third pillar of alternative food networks (AFNs). Empirically, by presenting two newly emerging models of AFNs from Berlin and Frankfurt—which go beyond just offering alternative food stuffs or using alternative distribution networks and instead aim at de-commodifying the food system—the article provides a closer view on existing alternative economic practices, highlighting the ways in which they think and perform the economy otherwise.

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Social justice is often considered the goal of participatory planning, yet justice is typically not operationalized, broadly defined, or clearly linked with participatory practice. We expand on Sherry Arnstein’s concern with the redistribution of power between the state and citizens by juxtaposing her ladder of participation with Nancy Fraser’s framework of justice. Fraser’s approach to justice seeks parity—defined as the social arrangements that enable people to participate as peers in public life—across economic, cultural, and political domains. Fraser provides principles to guide planners in determining what is just and unjust in participatory initiatives. Principles include ensuring proper participatory procedures, recognizing minority viewpoints and perspectives, attending to the framing of public issues, and remediating inequitable social structures. We illustrate the practical application of Fraser’s justice framework by drawing on examples from public engagement with climate change. Takeaway for practice: Although Fraser does not provide a tool kit for action, we offer suggestions for how planners can apply a justice framework to improve participatory practice. Planners can a) require appropriate procedures to ensure that all relevant people and perspectives are represented at the appropriate scale; b) ensure all perspectives—not just dominant ones—are recognized and valued; and c) respond to and mitigate the inequitable distribution of wealth and resources.