Active transformative pathways for local agri-food systems : drawing and applying an integrated framework to assess agri-food systems vulnerability under the political paradigm of food sovereignty in Ecuadorian Andes

Sumario: Taking into account the limitations of official approaches for addressing agri-food research, as well as their associated policies to tackle the problems of hunger and vulnerability of agri-food systems to global change, it becomes necessary to consider new frameworks and alternative policies for research and management of agri-food systems. With this thesis we contribute to the advances of agri-food research by rethinking the way of conceptualizing the agri-food system and by designing and testing analysis tools capable to link the research process with the management dynamics found in the local territory. We focus our attention on those linked to the political paradigm of food sovereignty. To achieve this objective we adopted a deductive and inductive method of research, organized in three phases. During the first phase, and under the wider umbrella of Sociology of Agriculture and Food, we developed a conceptual and theoretical framework which integrates systemic thinking and development studies capable to analyze the political paradigm of food sovereignty. For this purpose, we linked the approach focused in the analysis of socio-ecological systems (SES) with the vulnerability approach focused in the analysis of actors¿ dynamics. As a result, we have obtained an integrate framework that address the ecological and social dimensions of agri-food systems. During the second phase, we tested the framework developed in an empirical case study of a local agri-food system of the canton of Loja, located at the Southern Ecuadorian Andean region. The case is of particular interest due to the recent consideration of comunas and barrios as basic units for citizen participation within decentralized autonomous governments; and, the parallel process of creation of new collective action organizations, such as the recently conformed Agroecological Network of Loja (RAL). Using empirical data obtained from a survey conducted between December 2013 and March 2014 based on questionnaires to households (N = 116) and interviews to key informants (N = 14). We analyzed the role of social and institutional factors on the local agri-food system configuration taking into account the pillars of food sovereignty within the analysis. The results showed the significant, but differentiated, role of institutions (Agroecological Network of Loja), social groups (Saraguro indigenous culture) and income generation strategies on the agri-food system configuration. During the third phase, we assessed the future vulnerability vs resilience of local agri-food system through a participatory scenario development process. Using data obtained from semi-structured interviews (N = 14 and N = 25) and two workshops we analyzed the future trajectories of transformation for the local agri-food system under multiple ecological, socio-economic and political drivers of change. Four scenarios were envisioned by local actors. This assessment showed how drivers of change can affect different components of the local agri-food system when it is conceptualized as SES; and, how different perspectives contribute to build different future trajectories of active transformation. Overall, the results of the research process emphasize the role played by actors (understood as an intersectional group where gender takes meaning from its intersection with ethnicity and class) and novel institutional arrangements action to star the active transformation of agri-food systems in the marginal Andes. These findings have implications in agri-food systems policy design at local level, where the local peasant initiatives of social innovation have to be seen as potential mean to achieve the materialization of the political paradigm of food sovereignty within Andean agri-food system.