Session 12. 7.

The context of the organizations of seeds and their management possibilities in Brazilian civil society as well as their governance in a state government level through public management can be assessed by the lens of a typology categorizing them according to their purpose: commercialization, sustaining community life, ecological restoration and exploitation of intellectual property. The objective of this work is to focus on two types of organization of seeds: (1) the one that is focused on commercialization and is done by cooperatives linked to rural social movements in south Brazil; (2) and the one that aims community life sustainability and is done by associations from northeast Brazil. In order to define a theoretical framework the contributions of Olson (2002), Ostrom (1990), Ricoveri (2012), Shiva (1997), Dardot and Laval (2017) and Federici (2022) were considered. To meet the purpose of the paper, a qualitative methodology was chosen with the empirical investigation strategy of the case study. According to Yin (2001), the case study allows a contemporary phenomenon to be researched within its real context. Therefore we have done 35 interviews in four different communities and organizations that will be analyzed following the Bardin (2011) perspective and data categorization and interpretation will be mediated by NVivo software. By looking both at the concrete case studies and at legislation in the Brazilian context as well the preliminary results suggests that rural communities have managed the governance of the commons towards their seeds over the past few decades, despite the challenges of legislation, transgenic contamination and incentives to turn plant DNA into private intellectual property. This is a key theme for just food systems as well as for the current context of climate change and the Anthropocene.

In 2020, during the first confinement of Covid-19 in Switzerland, a food distribution project serving persons living in situations of precarity in the region of Nyon was born. Having encountered a great deal of support from the residents and the municipality, the project, dubbed la Soliderie, evolved into a fully operational épicerie in the heart of Nyon, supported by an attached café/bar serving local sustainable products, both of which opened in the fall of 2024 after two years of volunteer-led construction. Under this circular economy model, the café serves as a space for building community; supporting local producers; sharing knowledge around social justice, sustainability and solidarity across generations, cultural backgrounds, and social environments; and celebrating the rich culture of the region and the people who live there. Meanwhile, the épicerie offers highly subsidized fresh food and hygiene products, helping to meet the needs of the community while reducing waste, as many of the products come from local supermarkets’ surplus stock. Built out of donated shipping containers and with repurposed and sustainable building materials, the beautifully constructed site is a place where residents from all walks of life can come together and feel they have a place. At the heart of the project is the goal to destigmatize food insecurity while rendering more visible social problems that are often unspoken and hidden so that we can collectively work towards solutions. Still in its infancy, this project is attempting to reimagine key sites of profit-oriented consumption—the café and the market—and reclaim them as spaces of resource sharing, community building, mutual aid, and solidarity in a social and environmentally conscious way. This presentation aims to place on the table key questions about how, as an urban commons initiative, this project and those like it can best contribute to transformation within their communities.

Economic democratization results from political intervention or from workers taking control of production - at least this is the common understanding of how economic democracy can come about. Consumers are seen as influencing economic processes more indirectly: either by creating incentives for producers through aggregate consumer choices, or by exerting pressure through the formation of interest groups and social movements. However, consumers can - and often do - actively participate in the democratization of the economy: They come together and form consumer-owned businesses to democratically organize their supply of goods and services. This paper introduces the notion of "consumer-driven economic democracy" to understand how consumers' collective self-organization can democratize market relations. Combining economic sociology and organizational studies, it draws on the literature about commoning and prefigurative organizing. The paper proposes a twofold process. First, consumer-owned businesses democratize the economy by implementing democratic organizing practices within their organizations. Second, these democratic practices help to transform practices beyond their organizations, by transforming relationships with and practices of supply chain actors. Empirically, the paper draws on preliminary data from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two consumer-owned and participatory supermarkets in Berlin. The paper renews academic discussions on economic democracy, the commons, and prefigurative organizing by bringing consumers to the fore. Its findings also have societal relevance by empirically informing current socio-political debates about "needs-based economies" and food democracy as responses to contemporary environmental and social challenges.

In this paper I mobilize the notion of autonomy to analyze circular food initiatives in the region of Brussels, Belgium. I examine two circular economy (CE) initiatives, a cooperative supermarket and a surplus food redistribution project, with a framework on autonomous food spaces (Wilson 2013). I explore the practices and imaginaries of initiatives that are experimenting with the ideas and practices of food as urban commons, such as sharing, reciprocity and mutual aid. Inspired by post-capitalist debates on the economy, I argue that these spaces are cases of reclaiming the commons when they contest the commodification and privatisation of the food system. The research shows the heterogeneity and complexity of these spaces. It illustrates as well how urban circular food projects can offer example of possible economic activities that rely on cooperation, solidarity and conviviality instead of profits. It explores the diversity of practices and imaginaries that prefigure a viable and alternative future and sheds lights on our understanding of diverse and circular economies by focusing on food as an urban common.