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Maria Fuentes.

Maria Fuentes

Senior lecturer, associate professor

Maria Fuentes.

Infrastructuring alternative markets: Enabling local food exchange through patchworking

Author

  • Christian Fuentes
  • Maria Fuentes

Summary, in English

The aim of this paper is to advance our understanding of the complex material arrangements involved in the formation of AFNs by applying the concept of market infrastructure and turning our attention to the process of infrastructuring. Based on an ethnographic study of REKO rings, a network of local food markets, we show how
disparate elements, e.g. digital interfaces, parking locations, and Swish (an electronic payment system), are interconnected and configured to form the REKO ring market infrastructure patchwork – an infrastructure made by linking together previously unrelated elements and re-purposing them. We then demonstrate how this patchwork
infrastructure enables the formation of market actors, coordination of the market actors’ activities, and the qualification and valuation of foods, thereby making the exchange of alternative food possible. Our analysis of infrastructure
patchworking illustrates a different type of infrastructure-making resulting in a temporary and fragile infrastructure which, despite its instability, enables exchange. Drawing on this analysis we argue that the potential of AFNs to take form and impact contemporary modes of food provisioning cannot be understood without exploring the process of infrastructuring.

Department/s

  • Department of Service Studies

Publishing year

2022-06-08

Language

English

Pages

13-22

Publication/Series

Journal of Rural Studies

Volume

94

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Business Administration
  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Keywords

  • Alternative food networks
  • Sustainability
  • Infrastructure
  • Sociology of markets

Status

Published

Project

  • Alternative Food Markets: Promoting new modes of food provisioning and consumption
  • Service Studies Consumption

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0743-0167