| Community supported agriculture (CSA) is a young, but quickly growing, movement in Canada, that, like other alternative agrifood initiatives, is based on creating locally-based spaces for more associative and environmentally- and socially just agrifood systems. Drawing on a case study of CSA in the Ottawa area, this research explores the ways in which the growers envision themselves in regards to the globalized conventional agrifood system. The thesis examines the movement's key discourses of (re)localizing the agrifood economy (through the creation of direct farmer-consumer relationships and the (re)embedding of communities in particular places) and that of building respect for nature (through the practice of organic and biodynamic agriculture and reconnecting people to the land and their food). These discourses challenge nature-society and local-global binaries and offer up new ways of framing these realms as interdependent and mutually-constitutive. In revealing the political processes behind these discourses and how they shape the practices and aspirations of the growers, this research also considers the CSA movement's effectiveness in realizing its broader goals. |
