Beschreibung
This ethnographic study explores how global and local dynamics intertwine in shaping the sustainability of food systems. Based on inductive in-depth ethnographic research with peasants north-west of Mount Kenya, the study reveals how peasants’ strategies, knowledge and practices – embedded in unequal power relations – shape their engagement in food systems. By taking this actor-oriented perspective, it shows that current shortcomings of global and local food systems are rooted in historical transformations of local economies and property rights, as well as global agrarian trends. Different local actors have different opportunities to deal with shortcomings of the intertwined food systems through economic diversification and collective action. Transforming such ‘glocal’ food systems towards sustainability requires a consideration of the heterogeneity of local actors, the power relations at play, and their varying capacities to engage with global market systems.
Fabian Käser holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Bern. He did research on peasant engagement in food systems in Kenya as part of the transformative project Towards Food Sustainability. Since 2020, he has been Head of the Swiss Academy of Sciences’ (SCNAT) Alliance for Global Research Partnerships (GRP-Alliance), strengthening equitable global research collaborations.