Paper short abstract:

As local contract farming initiatives are based on a direct relationship between farmers and citizen, we will discuss how this proximity is actually settled and performed. By describing the negotiation processes related to that partnership, we will question their food system’s transformation potential.

Paper long abstract:

Based on ethnographic descriptions of three local contract farming initiatives (CSA) in French speaking Switzerland, our communication aims to discuss how these networks organise and mobilise the producers - consumers relationship. Beyond narratives that present the proximity and the partnership as the core of their system, how is this « direct » relationship settled and performed by the actors through actual practices? Following a diachronic approach of the initiatives' careers and an embedded position of participant observation, we have pointed out some representation and negotiation mechanisms operating with this relationship. The construction of the proximity and of the belonging to an (imagined) community through different mediations (such as public events, website, newsletter or volunteer work) is a central issue for the creation and the management of these initiatives. This allows an articulation between activism and commercial imperatives that reveals the hybridity of these associations, which are both social movements and food supply chains. More specifically, they implement dialogical processes for the redefinition of food quality conventions (e.g. production modes, aesthetics, taste, social conditions, nutritional aspects) but also of the exchange regulation and trust between the partners. These negotiations are operated within the frame of a community but also with references and connections to wider movements of critical consumption and agriculture (re-)politicisation. In this way their transformation potential of local food systems is much more related to micro-ruptures, adjustments and connections within the revised producers - consumers relationship than to radical changes, this reveals also some of their underlying opportunities, tensions and limits.