Patricia Ballamingie

Field of dreams: just food's proposal to create a community food and sustainable agriculture hub in Ottawa, Ontario

As groups within civil society seek to advance discursive constructs of food security, social justice and sustainability through concrete, on-the-ground projects, they challenge the economic, social and ecological status quo. This paper will evaluate Just Foods proposal to create a Community Food and Sustainable Agriculture Hub in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, through the lens of Gibson-Grahams alternative/community economy and politics of possibility, and will argue that Just Food cultivates the emergence of new social and economic relations, even as their activities are constrained by and interwoven with neoliberal market logic. The introduction will provide the substantive context, methodological and conceptual approach. It is followed by an outline of the case study that will establish the conditions within which this project proposal emerged, and detail some of the challenges that have been overcome to date. The conclusion will demonstrate the food hubs alignment with Gibson-Grahams concepts of alternative/community economy and politics of possibility.

Neoliberalism and the making of food politics in Eastern Ontario

Despite their opposition to the dominant agri-food system, alternative agri-food initiatives may unwittingly reproduce central features of neoliberalism. Julie Guthman has been a particularly strong proponent of this view, arguing that food activism and neoliberalism have shaped one another dialectically in California in recent decades. This paper responds to her argument, with a view to distinguishing between what it reveals and what it may conceal about the transformative potential of alternative agri-food initiatives in North America. Drawing on primary research on a variety of community-based food initiatives in Eastern Ontario, Canada, we show how a neoliberal lens does help to illuminate some problematic characteristics of these initiatives, including assumptions about market-based solutions and focus on self-improvement at the expense of state involvement. However, this lens underestimates those aspects of community-based food initiatives that may appear commensurate with neoliberal rationalities but which also push in more progressive directions.

Governmentality, environmental subjectivity, and urban intensification

This article delineates concepts of eco-modernisation and urban sustainability (including its associated discourses), elucidating Foucaults notion of governmentality and examining select moments of contested urban governance in the neighbourhood of Old Ottawa South, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It shows how intensification – a “compact city approach” to urban sustainability – as both policy and practice, serves to both discipline and regulate by “conducting the conduct” of environmental and entrepreneurial subjects. It reveals that zoning has more explicitly become a political technology (albeit a flexible one) for achieving “highest and best use” of private property, privileging intensification projects proposed by developers, through a hierarchical exercise of state power that privileges market processes, while undermining community values and priorities.

Missed Understandings: Cultural and Communication Disconnects in Indigenous Livelihood Revitalization and Conservation

This article explores how lack of cross-cultural understanding led to disappointing results in the early stages of an agricultural revitalization project focused on the cultivation of Theobroma cacao—a native plant traditionally cultivated among the indigenous Kuna People of San Blas, Panama. Interviews with elders revealed insights into the cultural dimensions of cacao and aspects of project design that failed to address the role of cultural context, locus of control, and value orientation. Communication failures between project technicians and local people represent important considerations for future development projects linking indigenous livelihoods and biodiversity conservation. Deeper consideration of local customs and values may enable conservation objectives to be achieved in ways that are locally inspired and relevant.

Publishing graduate student research in geography: the fundamentals

This paper offers practical advice on publishing graduate student research within the discipline of geography, addressing the following questions: why, when, where, what, how and with whom? Section ‘The paper chase’ delineates the importance of publishing, identifies potential material to publish, suggests venues in which to publish and offers pragmatic advice on how to negotiate the publishing process (with regard to peers, supervisors and editors). Section ‘In library resources’, discusses the effective use of library resources, demystifies the significance of impact factors and elucidates the history of Open Access publishing.

Climate change and housing production in Ottawa, Canada: the business case for change

Abstract This paper’s unique contribution is a dialectical approach to housing and climate change looking specifically at the case study of the City of Ottawa, Canada. The housing industry must mitigate and prepare for a changing climate in the form of increasing severity of heat waves, flooding and ice storms. Risks to Ottawa’s housing industry due to climate change include stricter regulation, producer liability, disrupted production, interrupted supply chains and changing consumer preferences. The paper makes the business case for change to an industry and regulatory regimes that are over-invested in traditional assumptions and economies and underinvested in innovation. It then investigates some barriers to change and the different perceptions of the problem between the housing industry and the state, arguing that action to reduce and protect communities from climate change has been slow, disjointed and incremental. The authors finally offer solutions.

Connecting Food Access and Housing Security: Lessons from Peterborough, Ontario

Housing security and food access are two fundamentally related social issues: materially, through the experience of living with poverty and through the spatial organization of our communities; and conceptually, through discussions about the right to the city and distributive justice. Drawing on a broad literature review and fieldwork in Eastern Ontario , this chapter highlights strategies that could address housing security and food access in a more seamless, integrated way. We analyze the case study of Peterborough, Ontario, which exemplifies persistent challenges related to both food and housing. We trace the history of social, political and economic changes that led to this situation, and explore the extent to which governments and community-based initiatives (CBIs) have tried to address it. While Peterborough CBIs have introduced innovative programs to address these two issues, a crisis continues which requires more concerted action on all levels. We conclude with reflections on the benefits and limits of looking at food access and housing security through an integrated lens, identifying new research avenues that the lens opens.

Can community-based initiatives address the conundrum of improving household food access while supporting local smallholder farmer livelihoods?

Community food security (CFS) is widely defined as “a situation in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice ” (Hamm and Bellows 2003, 37). The CFS concept has also been widely adopted in Canada by community-based organizations, including public health units across Ontario, in their efforts to tackle household-level food insecurity while also supporting local efforts to (re)build sustainable agriculture. This chapter explores this conundrum at the heart of CFS: Can community-based initiatives help address household food insecurity and support fair livelihoods for local smallholder farmers? Our research shows that responding to both sets of needs through community-based initiatives is possible, and could be seen as an important step towards broader food system transformation based on a more cooperative approach to economic relations. However, the evidence also shows that these initiatives can prove challenging to organize and administer, and should not be seen as a substitute for income support provided by the state to the food insecure.