The political ecology of food: Carving 'spaces of possibility' in a new research agenda

- Much research on food has been disconnected from its political and/or ecological implications.
- Political ecology is instrumental to develop a more critical food scholarship.
- We explore the potential contribution of political ecology to food studies and vice versa, highlighting three aspects.
- Understand place-based socio-natures; address the politics of scale and inequality; and co-produce knowledge and change.
- Urban food strategies and food sovereignty movements are discussed as spaces of possibility in the new food agenda.

In times of austerity and global environmental change, recent crises related to food (in)securities and (un)sustainabilities urge us to reposition agri-food research. We argue that there is an opportunity to develop a more critical food scholarship by explicitly integrating political ecology approaches. For this purpose, the paper outlines major elements in the extensive political ecology scholarship to guide a critical review of some central trends in food research, as well as considering the contribution to date of food studies to political ecology perspectives. This exercise allows us to identify key avenues of convergence between food studies and political ecology frameworks that constitute three conceptual building blocks of a revised critical food scholarship: understanding place-based socio-natures; addressing the politics of scale and inequality; and co-producing knowledge and change. These coordinates are used to analyse two emergent potential spaces of possibility, embodied in the emergence of cities as food policy actors and the rise of the Food Sovereignty movement. We conclude by exploring how a critical food scholarship could inform an inclusive reframing to produce the grounds of possibility for a more socially and ecologically diverse food system.