The Local Food System in Bologna: Between Latent Conflicts and Evolving Democratic Practices

Collective actors involved in local food systems during periods of ecological transition are often associated with elements of depoliticization. They are frequently labeled as utilitarian struggles, narrowly focused on achieving specific goals without mobilizing broader narratives of systemic change. Alternatively, they are dismissed through behavioralist interpretations, portrayed as irrational or impulsive movements driven by emotional grievances, as evidenced by the recent tractor protests across Europe. This dual framing tends to underestimate the complexity and potential of these collective actors to act as catalysts for the transformation of local food systems. In this analysis, we propose a different interpretation, investigating how collective actors challenging local food systems can contribute to the grounding of emancipatory and sustainable practices in times of ecological transition. Our analysis is guided by two complementary objectives. First, we examine how these collective actors mobilize visible and latent conflicts surrounding food systems, bringing issues of food production, distribution, and consumption to the forefront of public and political debate. By doing so, they challenge existing power structures and problematize dominant narratives of ecological transition that might otherwise marginalize critical perspectives. Second, we explore how these mobilizations function as processes that foster the development of new democratic practices. This involves examining how these actors reimagine participation, decision-making, and accountability within food systems and beyond. This contribution develops its arguments through a mixed-method approach conducted in the metropolitan city of Bologna. Bologna has historically been a pioneer in both grassroots organization of agroecological and food movements and institutional experiments with multi-actor collaboration. The analysis is supported by a range of empirical techniques, including approximately 20 qualitative interviews with experts from the local food system across various sectors, a mapping of the local food system that identifies actor networks, and an online survey distributed based on data derived from the mapping process.