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.Local struggles always connect to systems and issues outside thelocality; to be effective they must also connect to larger-scale efforts.Power Among PlacesA latent analogue of the growth of the emphasis on the local is a type oflocalism that can become defensive and protectionist.Defensive localisminvolves reducing federal spending, pushing responsibilities down to lowerlevels of government, and attempting to contain social problems withindefined spatial and political boundaries.The politics of defensive localism176 Together at the Tablehas been a key feature of the politics of race and poverty since the early1980s (Weir 1994).Antihunger activists struggled against this trend byworking to stop block granting of federal food programs in the 1996 wel-fare legislation.They reasoned that local control would lead to lower lev-els of food assistance, and the assistance that was available might beprovided more sporadically or preferentially in the absence of federal stan-dards.For example, welfare reform in the late 1990s showed how decen-tralization can mean increased costs without increased power to change theconditions that gave rise to the problems in the first place.The politics ofdefensive localism makes localities responsible only for the problems thatoccur within their jurisdictions in a world that is already defined and frag-mented by income and ethnicity. Local empowerment can become a veryconservative goal that allows the broader political community to concen-trate social and economic problems in particular places and refuse to takeresponsibility for those problems (Weir 1994: 341).Local actions may produce unintended negative effects such as the exportof garbage and toxic waste to other areas.One form of defensive localismis the  not-in-my-backyard (nimby) movements of the 1980s that workedto keep toxic waste out of their communities.The logical implication wouldbe that the waste would then be dumped in communities with less powerto resist.Localism may bring about marginal defensive actions that can pitgroups against each other.For example, the leaders of a community foodsecurity project were proud of its success in reducing food imports fromoutside the locality.They were uninterested, however, in the impact thislocalization may have had on the livelihoods of those who depended on theprevious arrangements (e.g., produce truck drivers or nonlocal small farm-ers).This strategy is another kind of defensive localism, refuting the notionthat low incomes, not outsourcing, are the cause of food insecurity.Thiskind of localism enables communities to  do what powerful economic elitesalready do displace costs onto others (Hunter 1995: 337).Business haslong used spatial dispersal and competition between places as a major strat-egy for reducing labor costs and ensuring a docile, compliant workforce.The emphasis on community and localism also raises the question: Whois not  us ? Localism can be based on a category of  otherness that reducesthe scope of whom we care about.Community can be defined as againstothers and thus be exclusionary.Being part of a community necessitatesdefining others as outside that community.This is how social cliques func-tion among children.Is the notion that boundaries such as farms, commu-nities, or nations can or should serve as the boundaries of concern ethicallydefensible? Is it possible to just protect our community from food insecu-Rethinking Food-System Localization 177rity without protecting everyone? Would we want to? Can alternative agri-food strategies and solutions be defined in terms of  only-in-my-backyard?For Kloppenburg and others (1996) the idea of a global foodshed is anoxymoron.I am not so sure.It is both possible and ethically required thatwe work to develop an agrifood system that enables everyone to share thebounty.For the ethicist Peter Singer, geographical distance should in noway absolve people of responsibility to ameliorate suffering elsewhere.Thecfsc has taken this tack, and in 2002 formed a committee to look at foodsecurity issues on a global level [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]