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Paper short abstract

This paper looks at multi-stakeholder platforms in the cocoa sector to get a grip on how the infrastructuralization of alternative futures forecloses non-hegemonic alternatives for current supply chains and proposes infrastructural interventions to mobilize different concepts of alternativity.

Paper long abstract

This paper engages the infrastructure of cocoa supply chains to analyze what futures they support and which alternatives they foreclose. Inspired by Miriam Posner's work on logistical software and supply chain infrastructures (2018, 2026), I focus on the installed base of current global food systems to get a grip on "the inability to conceive of plausible non-hegemonic futures" (cf. panel abstract).

Specifically, I look at multi-stakeholder platforms (MSP) in the cocoa sector as a mechanisms for negotiating alternative futures and a sustainable chocolate industry. MSPs are the fora where standards (e.g. for certification of sustainable cocoa) are set and thresholds for being included in industry supply chains are defined. Similar to logistical and supply chain software, MSPs allow operationalizing certain ideas of sustainability but typically perpetuate colonial trade patterns (Hoffelmeyer et al. 2022, Schuster & Mossig 2024).

Based on an analysis of SwissCo, a multi-stakeholder platform founded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) to "improve the living conditions of cocoa farmers, to protect natural resources, and to promote biodiversity in cocoa producing countries," I elaborate on how the infrastructuralization of alternative futures often prevents the development of viable alternatives to current supply chains. I argue, however, that STS approaches can inform practice-based research that mobilizes different concepts of alternativity through infrastructural interventions.