"Food Security" and "Food Sovereignty": What Frameworks Are Best Suited for Social Equity in Food Systems?

Abstract

This paper contextualizes the discourses of "food security" and "food sovereignty" within the history of the global industrial food system and aims to increase understanding of these different discourses among food activists, and food justice activists in particular. The paper highlights some of the epistemological, methodological, and ethical challenges of defining, measuring, and alleviating food insecurity, using the U.S. as a case study. As suggested in the conclusion, social scientists must continue to engage with activists and through campus-community partnerships to help decipher the trade-offs and implications of employing different discursive frameworks.