Selective Patronage and Social Justice: Local Food Consumer Campaigns in Historical Context |
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Authors: | C Clare Hinrichs Patricia Allen |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA;(2) Center for Agroecology & sustainable Food Systems, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA |
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Abstract: | In the early 2000s, the development of local food systems in advanced industrial countries has expanded beyond creation and
support of farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture farms and projects to include targeted Buy Local Food campaigns.
Non-governmental groups in many U.S. places and regions have launched such campaigns with the intent of motivating and directing
consumers toward more local food purchasing in general. This article examines the current manifestations and possibilities
for social justice concerns in Buy Local Food campaigns, by considering them within the more general category of “selective
patronage“ campaigns. Historical campaign examples, such as Buy Union, Buy American, and Buy Black campaigns, offer instructive
comparisons to contemporary consumer campaigns promoting local food. Through examining the construction of threats, intended
beneficiaries, products to be avoided, and those to be preferentially selected, the paper demonstrates how selective patronage
campaigns have emphasized social justice needs and concerns for designated groups in ways that have been potentially exclusionary
of other disadvantaged groups and thus undermining of social justice more broadly. As a contemporary instance of “selective
patronage,“ Buy Local Food campaigns exhibit similar contradictory impulses, which are intensified by the conceptual and practical
pitfalls in designating “local.“ The article concludes by considering how the challenges and prospects for commitments to
social justice in local food consumer campaigns reinforce the importance of emerging initiatives centered on domestic fair
trade. |
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Keywords: | Buy American Buy Black Buy Union ethical consumption local food system selective patronage social justice |
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