Researching European 'alternative' food networks: some methodological considerations

Recent European literature on ‘alternative’ food networks (AFNs) draws heavily upon an apparently accessible and diverse body of non-conventional food networks in the agro-food sector and whilst researchers frequently refer to individual examples of farmers markets, box schemes, producer cooperatives and community-supported agriculture projects, less attention is given to the methodological processes that facilitate the identification and examination of these networks. From the preliminary stages of a research project focusing on examples of AFNs,2 this paper examines the process of operationalizing AFNs research and reviews the difficulties associated with identifying, comparing and characterizing AFNs

Possible food economies : a methodological framework for exploring food production-consumption relationships

Modes of food production-consumption defined as 'alternative' have received considerable academic attention, with studies exploring both their potential for contributing to rural development strategies and the opportunities they provide for countering established power relations in food supply systems. However, the use of the term 'alternative' as part of a persistent dualism in which it is opposed to the 'conventional' is problematic as it loses sight of the specificity of different examples food production-consumption. Based on extensive field research with a series of very different food projects, this article develops a methodological framework which structures a description of how specific examples of food production-consumption are organised with reference to a series of analytical fields. This framework retains a sense of the diversity and particularity of particular cases of production-consumption, and directs attention to the particular locations of resistance to prevalent power relations in food systems that are made possible through different food projects