ABSTRACT
Reading for difference in the diverse economic practices of food hubs, this chapter explores the politics of the possible that emerges from the practical innovations of food hubs. Drawing on the empirical evidence of a case study of a ‘failed’ food hub, I argue that food hubs are not driven primarily by social mission or monetary incentives, but rather those two dimensions of food hub activities are inseparable and co-productive of each other. Building on Tilzey’s critique of simple binaries in analyses of emerging Alternative Food Network (AFN) forms, I ask how agri-food scholars might pursue a mode of inquiry that opens to the emergent properties born of a food hub’s unique assemblage of actors, actions, resources, and context. By focusing on emergent (if ephemeral) attributes of new experimentations in AFN enterprise, I suggest that we might better attend to what Tilzey describes as the “various gradations” of resistance to capitalism. Drawing on Gibson Graham’s theory of diverse economies, I argue for a post-binary approach to AFN inquiry, and argue that the diverse economies method of reading for difference allows us to take seriously the more-than-financial concerns, motives, and activities of actors engaged in living experiments in community agri-food economy.
