Paper short abstract:

The strong dialectical presence and surprising socio-economic viability of the alternative agro-entrepreneurial initiatives that emerged over the last decade on the periurban fields of Valencia, Spain reshaped the representation of these fields and the future metropolitan imaginaries of the area.

Paper long abstract:

My study investigated how a few dozen small-scale agro-entrepreneurial initiatives managed to revive the periurban fields of the Metropolitan Area of Valencia through their. This study aimed to understand how the alternative economic space created by these initiatives reshaped the contemporary representation of the fields they set out to cultivate. This study fits into the school of critical urban theory, which "emphasizes the politically and ideologically mediated, socially contested … character of urban space - that is, its continual (re)construction as a site, medium and outcome of historically specific relations of social power" (Brenner 2009: 198). A representational approach to landscape understands that it is a venue where systems of cultural, political and economic power can manifest through both material and dialectical construction (Rose, 2002; Wylie, 2007). Through the lenses of critical urban theory, this research meant to explore how the selected agro-entrepreneurial initiatives mobilized the available sympathizing social networks for their support and to what extent they wished and managed to engage their clientele in the redefinition of the Huerta's contemporary representation. It focused on how the emergence of the alternative agro-entrepreneurial initiatives could be perceived as a critique towards predominant power relations, inequality and injustice that might characterize the fields they operate within. A qualitative, exploratory case study research was conducted under a constructivist grounded theory methodology.