ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to draw attention to the actors of the alternative economic food practices. It argues that subjectivities and collectivities that practice alternatives are not pre-existent but instead emerge through their practices and experiences. Ecological economists and theorists pushing concepts of strong sustainability argue for conceptualising the economic system as embedded in a social system that is then part of an ecological system. The externalisation of immanence is also expressed in a transgression of ecological and biological times. While ecological time is the timescale for regeneration and renewal of ecosystems that allows for ecological sustainability, biological time is the timescale for the rhythms and needs of human existence. The old feminist claim ‘the private is political’ is interesting when theorising about food and gender. In political theory, an ethics of justice is often opposed to an ethics of care. Space is not a distinct category that exists outside of social relations but instead is an emerging socio-material process.
