ABSTRACT. This paper explores alternative food initiatives (AFIs) and their relational ontological forms. Demonstrations of pervasive and dynamic “intra-actions” in the urban foodscape can offer hope for a transformation away from disenfranchising associations of the conventional food system, despite the challenge of unequal dispositions of different actors and activities involved. This participatory ethnographic study of AFIs in Auckland, New Zealand, included following, observing and actively practicing with AFIs. The practices seen and done are read through the work of Barad to consider how a more just food system can be materialized through participants’ engagement with AFIs. Here, several case studies of AFIs disturb dominant thinking, to: highlight the abundance, prominence and dynamism of these models of alternative food; explore how doing differently is regularly and actively embodied by actors in the alternative foodscape; and, how these novel expressions of alternative food can engender hope in the urban food landscape through their intra-action. pp. 7–21

Keywords: intra-action; alternative food initiatives (AFIs); ontological form

How to cite: Sharp, Emma (2016), “(Intra-)activity of Alternative Food: Performing a Hopeful Food Future,” Geopolitics, History, and International Relations 8(2): 7–21.

Received 7 August 2015 • Received in revised form 2 November 2015
Accepted 2 November 2015 • Available online 15 November 2015

doi:10.22381/GHIR8220161