Agricultural Utopias: Transformations through visions of change in the alternative food movement

Abstract

The current food system is increasingly revealing its detrimental to people and the planet and thrives on an economic system that exacerbates these grievances. In the face of this, alternatives are arising in the hopes of showcasing what a better food sys-tem may look like—the Alternative Food Movement (AFM). This speculative nature of the AFM is one rife with visions of a better future, and efforts at enacting them. This thesis looked to answer the following research question: How do the visions of the Alternative Food Movement (aim to) contribute to transformative change in the food system? The answer to this question was built on an exploration of the AFM in Utrecht as a niche, followed by the description and evaluation of the visions that different Al-ternative Food Initiatives (AFIs) voiced. This evaluation consisted in approached the visions as social innovations and subsequently establish the transformative intent un-derlying them and their prefiguration.....