EATING YOUR WAY INTO A BETTER WORLD - An Ethnography of a Food Collective in the Netherlands

Abstract

Throughout Europe, people are experimenting with collective practices of food provisioning. Various grassroots movements establish alternative food networks that not only value healthy and qualitative good food, but also take social and environmental sustainability into account. VOKO Utrecht is such a grassroots movement, namely a food collective that aims to create a green community in which people can eat local and natural food at a fair price. Together with local farmers they create a short food chain, in which good food fair prices and collaboration are highly valued. In this thesis I research whether the alternative food provisioning of the VOKO may offer a social ground for individuals to become, through critical consumerism and civic participation, political engaged. This is a study about a grassroots organization, that tries to call into question implicit assumptions about the globalized food system, civic participation, capitalism and sustainability. VOKO s collective and participatory practice of food provisioning is transforming lifestyles in such a way that individual ethical consumerism could not do. VOKO members are part of a civic food network and operating as collective actors. The VOKO formulates an alternative economy for food distribution, experiments with new forms of governance, supports small and new initiatives and local farmers, practices mutual help and coproduction, and injects trust, solidarity and loyalty in everyday food practices.