Paper short abstract:

Investigating the overcoming of food quality and safety rules in practice, this paper investigates the multifaceted dynamics of a continuously evolving experiment with Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) in a neo-rural micro-economic network, a cornerstone of food sovereignty activism.

Paper long abstract:

Proponents of alter-globalism consider experiments with food sovereignty a prefigurative practice that anticipates broader eco-cultural change. The subversion of food governance is here considered as based on a critique of food safety and quality rules. Critics, however, remain skeptical about the capacity of alternative and more democratic forms of food governance to enhance social change. In anthropological social movement studies, the practical implications of these prefigurative politics have rarely been investigated empirically. Based on an ethnographic analysis, this article illustrates the multifaceted dynamics of a continuously evolving experiment with Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) in a neo-rural micro-economic network, a cornerstone of food sovereignty activism. An ethnographic perspective can grasp the shifting terrain of the political mobilization, frictions and unintended consequences of these types of politics. The article demonstrates the importance of understanding the complexities of prefiguration as not a simple linear, coherent process of overcoming and re-making of rules.