Social Science Resarch on Food Action Networks in the Alternative Agrifoods Movement

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

(Public Law 111-5).

Anthropologists Dr. Donald M. Nonini and Dr. Dorothy C. Holland (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) will undertake research on food action networks (FANs) and the alternative agrifoods movement in four sites in North Carolina. The researchers seek to investigate multiple aspects of this local manifestation of increasing social concern about food, its production, circulation, and consumption in the United States, at a time of widespread economic challenges and climate change. Topics to be addressed include: (a) the relationship between socio-spatial organization, local governmental and infrastructure resources, social diversity, and FAN participation; (b) the organization and activities of FANs within and across sites; (c) how participants perceive and act upon the moral logics of FANs, particularly in relation to marketplace logics; and (d) the relationship between this movement and sustainable agriculture and community food security movements found elsewhere in United States. The researchers will employ a mix of social science research methods, including ethnographic participant observation, semi-structured interviews, intensive key-informant interviews, text analysis of print and other media, archival research, and social network analysis.

This research is important because it will contribute to public and policymaker understanding of alternative agrifoods practices and discourses, which will help to build a more robust and resilient food provision system. The research also will help to develop social science theory that recognizes diversity within social movements and that is able to incorporate micro-level studies of local actors who also are aware of and act in relation to the larger economic and political institutions within which they operate. Funding this research also supports research training of four graduate students.