The current global food system is market-driven and depends on the exploitative commodification of our basic need to eat. It has been consistently condemned for its incapacity to account for justice, sustainability, welfare, and health. Developing alternative food system strategies is a necessary step towards creating a more sustainable and just reality. By conducting a comparative analysis using semi-structured interviews and virtual mapping between a rural area and an urban city in Ontario, Canada, the relationship between food geographies and the development of diagnostic (problem-oriented) and prognostic (solution oriented) framings within the corporate food regime is explored. Considering the influences of socio-geographical context (i.e. urban or rural), and the impacts of cognitive and physical food distancing adds new perspective and considerations to the existing literature. The results found that the urban participants had more robust diagnostic and prognostic framings than the rural participants. They also found that the impacts of food distancing were represented by the participants differently; The urban participants experienced more significant cognitive and physical distancing, but were mostly worried about the impacts of cognitive food distancing, whereas the rural participants were mostly focused on the impacts of physical distancing and were less affected by both types of distancing.

The UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), held in September 2021, brought great expectations of a sustainable food systems transition in accordance with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It was, however, almost instantly criticised for failing to be transparent, implementing a Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA) and agroecological principles, and for not including the UN Committee of Food Security (CFS). The CFS has reached high credibility over the last decade due to its inclusive and transparent structure. The UNs partnership with the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the appointment of Agnes Kalibata as Secretary General Guterres’ Special Envoy to the UNFSS has further been the basis for arguing that corporate actors has gained power and influence over the UNFSS. Following Friedmann and McMichael’s Food Regime Theory (FRT), the aim of this thesis is to use Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to explore the UNFSSs contributions to the food security discourse of the contemporary food regime within the frameworks of human rights and agroecology. The conceptualisation of food security bears political and economic implications and the UNFSSs contributions to its discourse could potentially influence global food governance and the future role of the CFS.

As the global food system causes environmental degradation and contributes to detrimental health effects, a transformation is vital for a sustainable and fair future for all. Research on food system transformation and the role of food initiatives have increased. Niche initiatives or “seeds” in the food sectors in Stockholm and Cape Town are finding new ways to contribute to change in the social-ecological systems in which they operate. The questions addressed in this thesis are (i) how the transformative capacity of these seeds have developed over time (ii) what amplification strategies the seeds apply to increase their impact and (iii) what the enablers and barriers to amplification processes are. A three-dimensional framework of transformative capacity and a typology of eight amplification processes are used for the analysis. Findings indicate that seeds are building momentum and developing transformative capacity within three areas: connecting to the biosphere, social cohesion, and agency. The initiatives foremost apply strategies of stabilizing, growing, scaling deep, and scaling up to amplify their transformative impact. Food seeds play an important role in building sustainable food systems and their contribution to change challenges the traditional thinking of growth in transformations and emphasize aspects of changing values, improving quality, and encouraging diversity.

Employing a political-economic approach, we examine the Atlantic bluefin tuna fisheries in the Mediterranean. In doing so, we highlight historical transformations in fishing operations given the commodification of bluefin tuna and the growth imperative of capitalism. Fieldwork in Sicily and Sardinia, in-depth interviews, and primary and secondary data inform this analysis. Within the global agro-food system, traditional trap fisheries that operated for centuries have diminished. Industrialized fishing and tuna-ranching operations - that make use of high-tech, capital-intensive methods - have reorganized production, including the labour process, the capture of fish and the lifecycles of bluefin tuna. In an attempt to profit from the exploitation of the most prized fish in the world, capitalist fishing operations are harvesting bluefin tuna at a rate that exceeds the reproductive capabilities of the existing stock, which has had negative consequences for the traditional trap fishery and may lead to the collapse of this fishery. Modern capitalist social relations have destabilized an ecological system that has long been coupled with human systems within a few decades, with extensive socio-ecological consequences. Aquaculture, as a proposed solution, is a technological fix, which cannot resolve fundamental ecological contradictions.

The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of Klawock's Tribal Citizens' relationship to harvesting what is colloquially known as customary and traditional foods and/or native foods. The state and federal governments categorize these culturally specific goods as subsistence foods. An unearthed, 5,360-year-old basket potentially links modern day Klawock Tribal Citizens with their ancestral ties to the region. Throughout this time, families in this region of Southeast Alaska have been participating in a form of indigenous fishery. Despite access to multiple grocery stores and fish canneries, tribal citizens choose to expend their family's efforts to harvest their own sockeye out of the Klawock watershed. Oral history and ethnography and methodologies were employed to record personal relationships with the harvest of these resources while also documenting a context in which these relationships exist. Klawock Cooperative Association's staff worked alongside the student researcher and participants to analyze the data and produce findings. Engaging in customary and traditional activities rewards participants with intrinsic facets of their identity. Alongside reinforcing identities, these activities teach participants about family dynamics and working as a team, as well as the responsibilities that come with. These responsibilities are formed through the assignment of roles and provide people with purpose. The roles of individuals within their family dynamic parallel their understanding of their place within the larger society. Having a purpose and knowing their place shapes participant's accomplishments in the food system and honors them with feelings of pride. Based on these findings, KCA interprets customary and traditional activities as an epistemology in which increased access and participation provides an upwards trajectory of community health.

Food has a crucial role in our lives as a way of shaping identities, societies, and because it enables possibilities of bringing people together. Access to food has complex social, ecological, and economic implications that deserve to be examined through a new approach. Natural disasters and nutrition concerns can be taken as an opportunity to reflect on alternative ways of getting accessing food, especially in urban contexts. In case of a similar outbreak or emergency of unknown repercussions, will mainstream food supply function sufficiently and be affordable? The aim of this study is to contribute with increased knowledge and understanding on alternative ways of allocating food in an urban context, to contribute with a discussion on their current spatial arrangements and possible ways of planning for them. As opposed to the mainstream ways of allocating food, alternative organizations specialized in food do not have a permanent space that makes them visible to outsiders, hence hindering access to them. The study shows that urban dwellers can have fluid roles regarding how food is allocated in urban contexts. They can be makers and producers, not only consumers. Alternative food allocation is a phenomenon that entails assorted aspects such as trust, spatiality, and safety and availability of the redistributed food.

Food systems are complex social-ecological systems. Currently, they are the source of large-scale health problems and environmental impacts, and there is widespread agreement that transformative change is needed. Scenarios are useful tools for directing such change, as they provide engaging future visions that work well with complex systems.  This thesis is a part of Mistra Food Futures, a platform for a sustainable transformation of the Swedish food system, where scenarios for Swedish food futures are being developed. The thesis purpose is to contribute to the scenario development by the use of systems mapping and semi-quantitative scenario modelling. The thesis builds on four scenario narratives previously developed by Mistra Food Futures researchers. During the thesis process, these scenario narratives were re-interpreted as Causal Loop Diagrams. The diagrams were then used as the basis for constructing a food system model in the form of a Fuzzy Cognitive Map. Simulations were run to investigate the conditions under which the scenarios could be reproduced by modelling. The modelling uncovered several system dynamics: the competition or shared interests of different types of agriculture; the system impacts of novel foods; the vulnerabilities of localised food systems; the importance of food culture; and the interactions of environmental policy with farming systems. Another finding was system attractors where scenarios mix, and these are presented as alternative scenarios. The thesis contributes to the scenario development by making relationships, system feedbacks, and drivers explicit by systems mapping, as well as providing a user-friendly model that can be used for further system exploration. The analysis of specific dynamics can be used to inform upcoming scenario iterations, and alternative scenarios can be used to maintain analytical depth when scenario interactions are discussed. The process also provides a demonstration of the use of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps in scenario modelling.

The 21st century has witnessed a significant growth of financial activity in the food system. Although these developments have been mirrored with a rise in interest towards studying financialisation, there is still much to uncover of its complex workings in an equally complex system. Many studies have focused on the measurement of financialisation, but less have ventured to assess the practical nature of financialisation: how it spreads, who spreads it and what are its effects for the system it is colonising. This study creates a model to understand these practicalities. To test this model, I use quantitative soybean commodity chain data by the Trase database combined with a qualitative case study on Bunge Ltd., one of the biggest soybean traders and processors globally.Contrary to how financialisation is often treated, this study strengthens the understanding of financialisation as a deliberate process put in practice by the actors and structures in its host system. It is a process inherent to the foundations of the current neoliberal world order and globalised capitalist system, which it influences and is influenced by. To assess the practice of the financialisation process, in this thesis I have created a model that can be adapted to systems and commodities within as well as beyond the food system.

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