Transcript for
What did we learn about power? (with Tara Garnett and Sigrid Wertheim-Heck)
Matthew Kessler
Welcome to Feed a food systems podcast presented by TABLE, I’m Matthew Kessler.
Samara Brock
And I’m Samara Brock. Today we’re wrapping our season exploring power in the food system. To do that, we invited two core members of TABLE to reflect with us on the past 15 episodes.
Matthew
We had a wide ranging conversation that included the power of language, the power of imagination, the power of narratives, non-human power and more.
Samara
This is our last episode before taking a break to prepare for the next season.
Matthew
If you have any comments, questions or suggestions for the show, you can write to us at podcast@tabledebates.org and don’t forget to rate and review us wherever you listen.
Thank you for joining us for a roundtable conversation where we recap the feed podcast season exploring power in the food system. We're here to talk about what we learned, what surprised us and what we missed throughout the season. So first, can we do a quick introduction also so the listener can identify who's speaking.
Sigrid Wertheim-Heck
My name is Sigrid Wertheim-Heck. I'm an associate professor in global food system sustainability at vacuity University. And I'm also a board member of table. My field of research is mostly from a sociological perspective, looking at food system transformations as processes of transformation, looking how local lift experiences intersect with global food system sustainability.
Tara Garnett
I'm Tara Garnett, and I'm a researcher at the University of Oxford, and I'm director of Table. As regards my background, I'd say I'm a bit of a jack of all trades. So I look at food in the round. And I think my interests in food and food issues have evolved over time, over the 25 years, I've been working in an audit, but I'm particularly interested in people's different values and perspectives and how and why people disagree.
Samara
Great, so I'll just jump in. So we're gonna ask a lot of questions, looking back at specific episodes, but also reflecting back on the season as a whole. But just to broaden it out even wider. What's the one thing that stands out to you about the podcast as a whole now that we're basically two years in 40 episodes deep?
Tara
I've learnt a lot about issues that the podcast is exploring. And I think as a, as a listener of a podcast, podcast, you learn a lot about yourself as well, about how you how you react to things, how you engage with things, a constant tension within you, between wanting to sort of be swept up and engaged by the the argument, the narrative, the story of what it is that somebody is saying. And always wanting to push back, be critical, rub the cat’s fur up the wrong way, counter counter counter to make sure you're not sort of being duped. So I find that tension in myself when I'm listening to these episodes all the time.
Sigrid
Yeah, I'm also a great fan of the podcast, because you're taking all the time, but every podcast you're taking into another world. And so whenever you listen to someone who's really thoughtful, Yeah, actually also discussing his or her own work. It's like an Oh, yeah. And at the same time, the perspectives are sometimes very divergent. And I've really liked that because it makes you indeed reflect on your own positionality in the debates, but it also allows for uncovering the multi dimensional aspect of certain themes. So I also really like that the first series was about the global and the local scale. And now it's about power. And at first I was like, Yeah, power to so much to be said about power. But maybe that's so strong that you have this simple, themed, a simple word, but as such a world behind it, and unpeeling that world and seeing the divergent perspectives associated the multiplicities of its historical trajectories, lived experiences, I think that makes it really, really rich, and also makes it so clear, there is not such something like quick wins or single solutions fits all. And I think that's really important that the podcast brings about so everyone can recognize him or herself into stories that are being told and being shared, even when they are so distinct. And I think that's a great strength of the podcast.
Matthew
So we've dug into power in the food system. And I want to ask what surprised you, what guests spoke about something in a way that you know, maybe even gave you the equivalent of a slow motion coffee drop, where do you where you heard, so I think that really changed how you thought about an issue or particular debate in the food system. And maybe that's too high a bar to pass. But was there a guest or a conversation that spoke up that especially surprised you?
Sigrid
It's not so much that it completely surprised me in the sense that I was not fully aware of it, maybe not in that depth. But what I found surprising in this series was definitely also the podcast with Juliana and about the importance of the food that feeds our food and about the fungi.
Giuliana Furci
So without fungi, we wouldn't have any food as a species. We wouldn't have food because plants can't live outside of water without fungi that live on our in their roots, and therefore there would be no terrestrial plant on Earth. If there weren't any terrestrial plants on Earth, most of the animals that are consumed wouldn't be around either. More importantly, let's say, Okay, fungi have assisted plants to live outside of water, and there are animals that are edible, we would be able to feed ourselves as a species, but we wouldn't be able to preserve food, which really has been the driver for civilization as we know it.
Sigrid
And I think when you talk about power, it's good to be also a bit humble, because a lot of the podcasts were actually human centered and based on human agency, and there are limits. And I think also, yeah, the recent disasters also show that it's climate change and natural disasters, but also taking care of the soils we walk on and we are get being fed from are very important. And I think thinking about power beyond as humans as being behind the driving seat behind the steering wheel, I think is ultimately important.
Tara
Yeah, I mean, I think for me, in fact, it my feelings are encapsulated by a really lovely phrase that Jason clay of WWF use when he was talking about knowledge, and how the process of learning was, was was all the pieces are there, like in a kaleidoscope, but you shake it around, and they're reconfigured slightly differently.
Jason Clay
Learning is kind of like a kaleidoscope. You turn it one notch, you have all the same pieces, all the same information, but you see it in a totally different light, you see a different picture. And that is how we have to approach this. The data is there. It's incomplete, it's imperfect, you might have to weight it in different ways. But we need to be thinking more sideways than linear straight on.
Tara
So I would say that the insights I've gained through the listening to this podcast is more of that nature. And you know, that the kaleidoscope get shaken up differently by each of the different interviewees. I think that's what struck me, perhaps most, and I'm not quite sure how to express this. But for some people, power was really, really important. It was the thing they were talking about in the room. And for other people it was, yeah, sure there's power. But let's get on with the substance at hand, the issue at hand, which is food.
Matthew
Yeah, just to connect two of those ideas there. I was really struck by Blain Snipstal, who spoke both about history and the contested battle over history, and the battle over the narrative. It wasn't so much a battle over evidence, that wasn't what was going to, quote, change the food system in his mind. It was specifically what is the story that was going to compel people in a direction of greater support for a particular type of system?
Blain Snipstal
In this battle, in this historic battle, between the plantation of model of agriculture, and small-scale or smallholder agriculture, you know, humanity finds itself in the middle. And, and this battle is waged based upon ideas and values.
Matthew
And I've heard similar arguments, but I haven't heard it stated so plainly that this is the thing that we're fighting for. This is what's more important.
Tara
Yeah. Although Reginaldo did also how to protect. The one that wins is the one you feed, which is again, sort of where your energy goes there your attention flows, whichever way around that saying,
Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin
The one that feeds is the one that wins
Samara
We heard a lot of different kinds of power through this season. You know, it's very complex and multi-dimensional, you know, and someone like Philip McMichael had a really clear way of outlining different kinds of power, political material, epistemic collective action. And then Juliana, as you mentioned, Sigrid talked about non-human power. What kinds of power do you see operating in the food system that we should be paying attention to?
Sigrid
There were normative perspectives on whether it should be the Global-Local, these kinds of debates, food sovereignty versus food security, etc.
Matthew
And we had guests like Busiso Moyo who talked about the right to food.
Busiso Moyo
Part of why we are leaning on the right to food, at least I am, is that in South Africa, in particular, what you find is that there is this rhetoric that says South Africa's food secure at the national level. And for me, it's like, that is meaningless. Because when we're talking about the right to food, we're talking about people, and it’s about people that need to eat.
Sigrid
So that was all about what do we think is desirable? And what should good food be like? Or what is the right to food or what's the right of humans and Non Humans, there are also people who address it more from a kind of analytical perspective. And so where sits power and it could be either, especially in the big transportation that pig industry for instance, in Sweden, it's more about value chain approaches who within the value chain holds most of the power, or there was more from a wider perspective, including that also
Sofia Wilhelmsson
I think the abattoirs set the terms for many of the other private actors. And they could, for example, and I think sometimes they do, put pressure on farmers to, for instance, improve loading areas.
Sigrid
All specs beyond the food domain are playing into the power dynamics, more kind of systems approaches were there. And it was more like how do we unpack power in the food system.
And then I think it was kind of a third theme resonating, but a bit less explored. And it was related to also imaginative power. So what can we imagine? And I think closest to that was also maybe what was said by Julie about relation to Silicon Valley and how to approach food.
Julie Guthman
But it's also as you alluded to the cultural power of what we believe is possible. So it's both the political economy and perhaps the not failures of imagination, but constrained imaginations because other people were sucking up all the air of the room like the Silicon Valley folks.
Sigrid
But also, I think, Jason Clay made a remark about Yeah, also food can be grown within urban areas, but we need to be more imaginative, what can be done, and also imagination has a lot of power.
Samara
Sigrid shares one more example of the power of imagination.
Sigrid
I just had a very interesting talk for a new project we are doing and I'm connected to an artist, a designer, and futurist. she made such a powerful impression on me. Because what she said is from Yeah, what if we can uncouple nourishment from a product? So if the nourishment of a human being the nutrients would not be coupled to products as they are now? What we then like to eat? Or would we then what for what reasons would we then eat? And how would that how could that change? Thinking about food systems? That is what we currently also tremendously need. So not being stuck, we know but exploring what is possible what we absolutely do not know yet.
Matthew
Our guests diagnosed a lot of different types of power, a lot of analytical power. And I wonder if I could ask you Sigrid, what types of power do you think most directly lead to food system transformation? So you mentioned the power of imagination as a thing that can maybe be a prerequisite to an action happening that will change what the food system will look like in the future? Do you see any of these types of power as having more power?
Sigrid
Yeah, I don't know. Personally, I work a lot with consumption and not with individual consumers. So what I heard throughout the podcast series, that it was either very much focused on the system of provision, and from growing crops to distribution to corporate power, or it was seen as consumers when making a choice. But actually, I think consumption in general, how it is embedded in our everyday lives. And it's also my own. Yeah, line of research is about lived experiences or food environments, beyond just eating food for nourishment, but also because it's just entangled in our wider set of activities. I think it's very powerful. Because if I look at these types of ways of engaging with the food system, I also see how people contest top down policies that are put on them, you see a lot of informality, playing into food systems, creative agency of citizen consumers themselves.
And this is particularly important in countries like in Asia, in Vietnam, where I have lived, but the way I see it throughout Africa, where informality is often not taken into account, when we talk about big food systems, while actually so many people also co create the food system. And even closer to home in Central and Eastern Europe. We see how many people depend actually from allotment gardens because it has been like decades, that doesn't mean food provision and sharing and bartering and kinship shopping all play. And so I think it is not either or, but it is absolutely a kind of dialectic between how we, yeah, actually create food systems more from a structural perspective and how people engage with that food system. And there will also co shape it in certain ways. And yeah, for me, the power is relational and it is a balance. So it's an interaction. So it's never either or, but it's both. Yeah,
Tara
I mean, I have a few further comments, and I would certainly agree with everything Sigrid said, I mean, I think I think it was quite a prominent theme amongst some of the interviewees the power of corporations that the power was seen very, very negatively in that sense.
What I think was implicit, but perhaps not really explicitly discussed was, I guess, what I call the power of, of course, or of the way things are.
Jason Clay
And sometimes it's not power, per se, sometimes it's just inertia, and inefficiencies that have been ignored for so long that they seem to be the norm
Tara
And, and it is that kind of David Foster Wallace inaugural speech where he makes the joke about two fish, you know, fish going along, and the older fish says, you know, how's the water and the young fish says, What's water? You know, we don't know the water we're swimming in. And I think, I think that was, that was there, it was implicit. But I think for something that was so powerful, I'd have been interested to hear more of it.
But linked to that, I think were the other kind of manifestation of power was the power of the interviewees’ own convictions. Most of them were quite self assured, I wouldn't say all of them, but quite a lot of them kind of knew what they knew and they were right. In a way that I find it difficult to go about the world, thinking in that way. And I think perhaps the the, the, the podcasts that I perhaps warm to the most, particularly not so much on the first time. But second time, reading and listening to it, again, was the one with Herman Brouwer and Joost Guijt, because they were always kind of sense checking themselves, as it were, and being quite aware that they were stumbling along in the dark. I mean, I don't, they're very knowledgeably, but at the same time, that you're trying to figure things out as you go along, and you make mistakes. And this is a process.
Herman Brouwer
We also realize that we enter into some of these dialogues with different sets of privileges. To be aware of that is where need to start.
Tara
Power is an emergent thing that comes out of a lot of imbalances and lacks of power and lacks of knowledge, I think is is quite important.
And I think I think the other thing I would say, and again, just reflecting going back and listening to these podcasts, which you know, I love them, I find very, very interesting. But there is a lot of let's say intellectual elitism in them, you have to, you have to have quite a high level of analytical knowledge and understanding a lot of being familiar with abstract concepts and ideas.
Samara
That's a really good point. As you were speaking, I was thinking about our choices of guests. And, you know, you're, you're saying that they're very self assured. And I'm like, Yeah, I mean, would people would we interview people who weren't self assured, because, you know, that's how you come into position of power in the society in a lot of ways is you have a level of expertise that is developed through having a strong opinion that you've backed up and published a lot about, if it's academics or, you know, asserted in some other way. So it's an interesting like, it's almost you have to have that self assurance about your own opinions in order to be recognized in society, which is like that kind of invisible form of power you're talking about. And I'm just wondering, Sigrid, I see you sort of reflecting on that. Do you have any thoughts on, you know, is there a more dialogic power or a more, you know, less, less self assured power that we could be looking to?
Sigrid
I think the strength of the podcast series is the divergent perspective with when you listen to one and people talk very self assured about a topic, it's attractive because it draws you into the story. So when people are only talking about doubt, that's also very hard. But having these different perspectives, I think you, I would not advise people to only listen to one podcast.
Tara
I'm not quite sure how to put this but you have, you have intellectual analysis, on the one hand, and I'm being very binary here. And on the other hand, you have emotion and bundled into the idea of emotion there is also lived experience and you were quite, quite careful at the beginning of each episode to say like, you know, how did you get into all this and all the rest of it, and what we also heard with you know, Jason clay, Jayson Lusk and Chana Prakash was, was some of that background of experiencing poverty or hunger in some shape or form.
Jayson Lusk
I had spent the previous roughly decade, spending every summer walking miles with a hoe in my hand chopping cotton weeds and making a minimum wage. That was my job. And so when that county extension agent gave me a sprayer and he said, Go spray this herbicide on top of the cotton, I thought, are you crazy, like it's going to kill it. He's like, “No, it’s supposed to live.” So we did that came back about two weeks later. And sure enough, all the weeds were dead, the cotton was alive, looked healthy. And I was so overjoyed by the realization this technology existed because it meant the end to this job that I had grown to hate.
Tara
And for me, that that really packed a punch, you know, I felt okay, you know, what you're talking about. And, and that, that got me on side.
Now, we have a lot of discussions at the moment about lived experience, and its its validity, and how it compares with more sort of systematized forms of knowledge. You know, if you have lived experience as a rape victim, you carry, you know, more weight than if you've just done a big study about it and said, Do you don't use that? It's that question. And I think I think I found myself conflicted that because on the one hand, their experiences made me think, okay, you know what you're talking about, I have to listen to you really, really carefully. On the other hand I think it is important to look at things from a more systematic way, perhaps in a sort of cooler way. And and you might form a different conclusion.
And I think what what was interesting about those examples is that their experiences have led them to more or less, rejecting a sort of, let's call it an agro ecological vision. They're arguing for green growth of green economy rather than something completely different. And and often you hear about the lived experiences people who, who are sort of arguing for, for this more accurate ecological vision, so it's up ended my, my expectations there. And I found that, I found that quite interesting.
But again, as a listener - it's at the scale of resolution of which things things hold true. And the way you come to be convinced whether it is through this kind of personal connection, or through being convinced by by an argument, an idea in a much more rational sense. So I mean, I don't have an answer there. But I think this this emotion, intellect, thing is, is a constant. It's another one of the fault lines when we're talking about the food system, and and what we ought to do about it.
Samara
That’s a really interesting dichotomy. And it's one that I wonder if it's a real dichotomy, you know, thinking about, you're making me think about feminist science and technology scholars, to be honest. So you know, the idea that objectivity is this idealized view from nowhere versus, you know, more like situated knowledge, which people articulate as the stronger objectivity because it's bringing in different perspectives. It's a, it's an ongoing tension, as you said, and food systems debates, and, yeah, I just wonder, I sort of want to push back a bit on whether those can be divided out so easily. And what would knowledge production look like if we didn't separate? You know, lived experience and knowledge or objectivity and emotion?
Tara
Yeah, I mean, I'm totally with you. There isn't a view from nowhere. But I think there are more immediate emotional responses, and more, let's say reflective, distant responses. Yes, I don't think I have a good answer to that, I think I think we have to accept that all knowledge is context-informed, at least. And that is why statements like, you know, there's science and then there's ideology, just, you know, don't make a lot of sense to me. At the same time, I think if you go too, too far down that line, you get into a kind of, you know, I feel that I know how to fly a plane, versus actually I've done some training. And so I actually can fly a plane.
Matthew
To continue talking about some of these tensions that we saw throughout the season, I want to try to connect the dots and get your views on some of these, quote, oppositional views from each other. We just mentioned, the people who say science and ideology or opposition with each other, that's it's kind of one of these tensions. There's the group that looks at top down change, as opposed to bottom up change. And there's a lot to unpack there about how you think food systems can change based on using these different levers. There's the role of corporations in food systems and whether they should be constrained or they should be enabled and unleashed to provide more efficient solutions.
Sigrid
There is a lot of discussion and maybe controversy on the means to an end. So I think that people have kind of goal orientation and I think in general, everyone in the podcast series saw that power was important power needs to be addressed, whether more or less explicit, etc. And they all had an idea that the current system no one was saying that the current system is perfect. was only one mentioned maybe that the current system didn't fail and actually if provided for enough food also even that like the good Green Revolution can be contested whether to be good, or bringing bad, but in general, that it was clear that everyone agreed on: change is necessary.
So then you get to the question, okay, then how to bring change about and then the issue of power, of course, immediately comes in there. And then you'll get easily into kind of, and I would also call it kind of largely false dichotomies, whether they can't go together, for instance, the global and the local, the conventional and the alternative, corporate power and relocalization. And if I look in my in my own research, they always are hybridized in the real world. So in the end it we can theorize about it, how the food system is connected, and who holds power, where but in the end, it's just about human beings eating food on a daily basis, and how and when and where they do this. And then you see, actually, that it is not such a dichotomy, that actually it is an interplay between these different dynamics on the local scale that interferes with Dynamics on a global scale. So and I think that is important to recognize. And also I think that is humbling about this podcast series also in relation maybe, to the self assured storytelling, or several of the podcast guest.
That and I think, Jason, I think Jason has mentioned it, about from Yeah, I have my own evidence. And I can be convinced by other people's evidence, I need to remind myself to remain open minded.
Jayson
What evidence would cause me to change my mind? And if I can’t answer that, then essentially I’m an ideologue.
Sigrid
And this is something that I closely relate to, because I'm always influenced by old Greek thinkers about the greatest knowledge is knowing what you do not know. And I think this is precisely what counts for this debate on power, because they are all at play.
And I was also really thinking about if we would have had maybe Phil Howard and Channa Prakash in one podcast episode, how would they talk to each other? That was something that kept me thinking throughout because, on one hand, Channa Prakash clearly deepens the debate on GMO that is highly contested, and it's very emotional debate.
And I recall that we did a research I think, over 20 years ago, relating to how do people in the Netherlands for instance, see GMO, and then we sold it in our multicultural society, the ethnic background of people matters and how they looked at GMO precisely because maybe they had family or they had this lived experience of having a hungry tummy. So I think that is really important that art is there is this multi-sightedness to it. And we should not just cut off based on our own beliefs that maybe there is no something of truth in someone else's perspective.
So yeah, I find it difficult to remain and to unpack this kind of podcast series and kind of look, this is these are all these verses versus so global versus local corporate versus relocalization. Eco modernism versus agro ecology, food security versus food sovereignty. So we can continue in this kind of oppositional positionings. But I think it is exploring is most interesting, okay, but where do they meet? And if they meet, what change could then be brought forward? And I think that is that, for me is something that resonates after listening to all these different stories in this particular series.
Tara
I did try and find one thing that, you know, maybe everyone was fairly agreed on, on and I think most people felt that current subsidy structures were not very helpful. So I think that was probably one, one point of agreement.
But the comment that really, really intrigued me and frustrated me was a comment by Julia, at some point where she was talking about how will this link to food security in the slow food movement, all the rest of it? And she said, like, in passing, and I think we should, you know, question whether there should be 9 billion people on this planet, and I was thinking, Okay, right. So so and you propose what? So? So, but I think, I think that is just an entry to saying, I think what I would like to have understood is how the different speakers interviewees saw the role of the human in relation to the nonhuman world and prioritized it because I think there are some, there are some easy and well trodden narratives there. But when you get into the nitty gritty of it, I think it's a lot more complicated. And I would have liked to have seen a real discussion of how people felt about the the nonhuman world. That didn't lead to yet more polarization. And I guess this is hopefully what we will be exploring in our next theme as we move on to that at Table.
Matthew
We mentioned in a previous episode that our next theme will be “Should food systems be more natural?” What does it mean to eat naturally, farm naturally or value nature?
Samara
We had a lot of conversations with different people. But clearly, there were some kinds of power that we're missing, you know, things that you think are pivotal in shaping the food system, or that we could be key in, in creating food system transformation. Are there other aspects of power that you saw missing that you wished had been discussed?
Tara
Again, I've probably alluded to, but the power of language, of certain terms. I mean, the word consumer came up a lot for some people. And it's like, I don't know, when I was when I was a child. I don't think we were consumers. We were people. And now we're, we're default consumers. And I think it's not like the 70s were that great, but, but I just feel like sort of, I've sort of morphed into being a consumer now. And I, I think we should resist that. Or at least I would like to hear the perspectives of people who say, look at all the ways in which our language shapes our taken-for-granteds. And I think that would have been, I'd really have liked to have heard.
Sigrid
So I agree with with first with Tara on consumers., so I'm a consumption sociologist, and I have huge problems with how consumers are being discussed. And it's, it's made too simple. And often they are also portrayed as a kind of victim of the system and and they are uncoupled from their citizenship. And I think in current times, that is not just anymore. So I think we need more nuanced perspective on consumption in our society, because food is something we consume on a daily basis. Throughout the world. It's one of our main things we do.
But also, what I think is important to also address in these times, and also in the sportscars is the role of youth. So we discuss about the power and food system, but also for whom, so we have already discussed power to rule or power to change, but also power to change for whom and with whom, and I think that could be interesting to engage in a podcast series also with younger speakers, maybe they that they are not arrive yet in the terms that they are huge scholars with professorships and whatever. But I think it is important when you discuss these types of topics you engage also with young minds, but also acknowledged that we are currently doing a research on adolescence where we see that other lessons is a phase in growing up where you develop your own stance in life where you actually develop also your own positionality or normativity. While you're still strongly embedded in a kind of traditional ways of dealing from the families in the lives you come from, but also engaging with a highly dynamic future that you are co shaping so I think that is also something that is quite powerful the power of generation For instance.
And we need to be mindful how we talk about these issues, and what it means in different contexts. And then we get indeed also to what Tara mentioned before about lived experiences. So we need to acknowledge social differentiation within and between cultures, within and between countries, and within in between populations. So I think that is what we need to be more aware of when we discuss these themes of power, because there are some simple words that slip into the conversations while there are wide worlds behind it. And I think if we really care, we need to be mindful of these aspects as well.
Matthew
I love that. A really key tension that you just brought up as what is the boundary of the food system, you know, people have different conceptions of the food system as being a thing that happens on the farm and in a grocery store. Or you could be looking across the value chain, or it could be the economic system and housing policy is food policy, if you think about it from a food justice type of perspective. So yeah, that's something that the guests we've heard a lot of different views on.
Tara
Yeah, people like, I know, sort of food poverty campaigners. They're always saying the problem is not food poverty, the problem is poverty, poverty. And that's, that's what we need to address.
I think the biggest power struggle that I had when listening to it was, you know, the power struggle in my own head, which was, you know, I, I have a reasonably good idea of what my ideal food system looks like. And I feel it's really important to not trust yourself, and your visions. So to always be your own most, you know, violent critic. So I think when listening to these, I think I'm probably hardest on the interviewees who perhaps most spoke to my vision of what good looks like. And I probably gave a kind of softer ride to the people with whom I disagreed. And I don't know if that's the same for other people. But I think we always have to be questioning of our own motivations, when we listen to things.
Samara
But it's an interesting like, I'm not sure. Many people could, you know, outline exactly what their good food system would look like. It's an interesting question that maybe, you know, we do ask guests, but like, there's not a full articulation, often of what that exactly looks like, but there is a sort of link between what is a good life? And what is a good food system?
Sigrid
I think you triggered me Samara. Because it was really nice - we had a discussion once on, on the circular food system, that's also such a concept. That is - what is circular? And then we had interviews with 32 different people, different ethnic backgrounds, and there was a lady and and she was, I think, from Romania, and Auntie sent from Yeah, you know, I'm used to cooking too much making too much food or not, she didn't use too much. That's my own normative Stance. Okay, here correction. So this is precisely actually, I think, Tara you what you were mentioning, I always cook for also unintended or unexpected guests, because I want to be hospitable. And that's what I like to do. And he says, I never waste food, because then I give it to the tree in my garden. And so it is all circular. And what sticks to my mind about his notion was the fact that yeah, if people see that they're completely circular. You can't talk to them from oh, you should waste less if you don't think that you're wasting food, but you're doing something good. So having these versatile understandings and and indeed, being aware of what your own ideas are, what is good or what is bad? Or do we have a church and then be open to how versatile this can be? And how that leads to completely different ways of doing. I think that is that is really important. So yeah,
Matthew
yeah. And if it doesn't go to the tree, it could go to the chickens. And then the chickens then can provide eggs. But how much are you feeding something, some of these chickens are extremely well fed, let me tell you, some of these backyard chickens are getting Michelin star meals.
Samara
So we wanted to ask you what the season made you think about how we should be approaching our work of having food systems dialogues at Table?
Did you think these kinds of conversations achieve the goal of creating greater understanding of the values and evidence that drive food systems debates and and do they help to bridge these divides or not?
Tara
I think you can answer that in several ways. One is you could go and ask all the interviewees go and listen to everyone else's and say, How do you think about your own views in relation to this greater range of views? And also ask our listeners.
You know, people don't tend to have a kind of Pauline conversion. It's like they revisit the world with new kind of depth and kind of richness of insight. And I think it's really difficult to measure that. And I think, you know, that's what studying and thinking and learning, and that's the whole endeavor of that, isn't it.
But in terms of how one moves forward, I think one thing that is very clear to me, and this is Table’s work more generally, is that discussions, dialogues, they have to be iterative. And, and you can, you're never going to sort anything out in an hour or an hour and a half. And, and in a sense, you need to have the same people in the room, perhaps rehashing the same territory, but maybe rehashing it in ways that seem kind of frustrating and repetitive, but maybe ended up getting you to a different place. I think that is very, very important, I think we will only be able to do this as as Table when we have, and I use this word very consciously when we have more power, because it is the it is convening power, isn't it. And and when people want to take the time, because they believe that something worthwhile will come out of the process. It's a little bit of a chicken and egg thing here. But I think that, for me, things emerge over time, we have to be patient. And that's definitely not my strength.
Sigrid
I have a little bit of a different perspective to add to this. And that is actually I think, that the guests speak often also with the self confidence is also its richness. So you let people speak their story. And by offering all these completely different perspectives, that's what Table is about. So I don't see immediately that we should breach all these or bring to kind of consensus, I think that is, first of all, I don't believe in it, so that we can reach that and I think is also not what we need. I think we need this completely, maybe divergent perspectives as well for advancing our understanding.
So I actually, I would like sometimes when I listen to podcasts, I would have, I would have liked if these two people would sit on the same table and have a discussion with each other maybe to make certain values more explicit in their debates, that positionality their ideas and also confront each other with their very strong opinions and how they relate to each other. That could be very interesting. But I do not necessarily think that everything should be like bridging these differences at all. And for me, that is the real value in looking at a table is that everyone is standing is in his or her own right, to tell the story that they believe in and that they think is a value to be told.
So it's more like who do you give a seat on the table to speak out? And I think that's where yet where there still no way we can add on certain perspectives, where we engage more, maybe also with people who are less arrivé. So to say, and then yeah, allowed it. But in general, I also really like that people are just in their own strengths, and then speak out from that, because it's interesting, I find it fascinating. Even when I disagree. I like to be taken long on their stories on their pathway. So also when people explain and I really liked that first question that you often ask about where they're coming from. And it's so telling, because no one just jumps into it. There's always a reason why that motivates. And I think that motivational question is a very important question.
Samara
That's really interesting. I was just thinking, you know, some of our guests talk about the power of narrative to transform food systems. And somehow, I think about that and implicitly in there,sometimes is this assertion that we all have to think the same way in order to create food system transformation and what it sounds more like what you're saying is that we can move in multiple different ways to create transformation. Which is a very different way of thinking about, we have to - you know, it's not necessarily about changing it. Everybody's thinking, it's maybe changing our thinking about how transformation occurs.
Sigrid
Now, I think it's a very interesting a very valid comment. So I'm an historian by background. So and looking at history, it’s never: we have an idea, we fix it, and we move forward. And actually, a lot of change to the cures and societies is unintentional. So we also need to be mindful that whatever our intentions be, and how hard we strive, maybe the most effective are things that we didn't anticipate. Didn't foresee.
And then also, change comes about, and it's coming through multiple dynamics, and a very simple example. And it oversimplifies it. But currently, if we see, now the war in Ukraine is going on. And we see that prices of energy, electricity and gas and other fuels go up. So now we see that people are being very scarce with heating their house, or these kinds of things that are more mindful about it. But the reasons why people doing our multiplicity, some for some of them, they can't afford it, for some of them to just plain angry with a war in Ukraine, and you do it from a political reason. Some people do it from climate perspectives, and then you see that a certain moment different dynamics come together. And then these different dynamics altogether, make the changes really occurring.
if you look at it from a more historical perspective of how we, as human beings and our society have transformed, and as always multiple Causeways of our pathways. And I think that is just important when we talk about change. So this series was about power. But of course, power in relation to wants to maintain status quo, to transform something, and then to transform something for whom, to what, and I think these questions are explicitly addressing these questions is really relevant. Because in the end, and I think that is also what Tara has been repeatedly saying, also, in relation to previous podcasts on scale is, you know, there are ultimately always winners and losers are certain there are certain dynamics. So that's where we need to be mindful of.
Tara
I just like to add to that, and not really push back, but just just add a sort of slightly different angle. And I think what Sigrid is saying is that we need rather than a kind of synthesis of views, we need a side kind of synchrosis of views, it's this. It's a kind of the holding together of lots of different perspectives at the same time. And I, I agree, and the future, as the present is never one thing. And if it were, that would be, well, it would be quite terrifying, in many ways, wouldn't it?
But I also think that if we're always battling, we will always be battling. So it is a kind of tug of war where no one, you know, the pitch you're fighting on just gets muddier and muddier. Strong views are important. And I think we have to accept the legitimacy of a whole range of different perspectives. But I feel that if - something needs to move, and I use the word forward, as if there was this kind of linear trajectory of, you know, the future there isn't. But maybe all I'm saying is that the one thing I think is really important is a sense that you can get people together to say, “Okay, I trust that you are coming from a position of good faith and good intentions.” And, and that I think is really, really important. Even if your utopia is not my utopia, at least there is this kind of sense that not everyone is a bitter, twisted cynic who's just out for their own game. You know, there are plenty of those people, but they're not the people who come on our podcast. And I think most people are not like that either. So I think I think it's a pretty kind of, maybe it's quite a hippie dippie goal. But I think that's what I would like to see more of.
Matthew
Thank you both so much for speaking with us. I I learned a lot about the conversations that we had, kind of connecting the dots and putting this all together.
Samara
Yeah, it was great to reflect back on the season.
Tara
Pleasure.
Sigrid
And a great opportunity to revisit them all. To think about them all interconnected.
Samara
And a good reflection that they are all and need to be interconnected.
Matthew
Thanks again for listening as we wrap our second season of Feed.
Samara
We’d love to hear from you. What do you think of the season? What was your favorite episode? What was missing, what was striking, or what challenged your thinking? You can let us know by writing a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or writing to us at podcast@tabledebates.org/
Matthew
We’ll be back in the Fall, but until then, we’ll be sharing a few episodes from the Meat the four Futures podcast that I’ve been working on this last year. This is where we explore four different visions of what a good future for meat and livestock could look like - less meat, more meat, no meat or alternative meat.
You can search Meat the four futures wherever you listen to podcast and subscribe, or find out more info on our website - tabledebates.org
Samara
As always, you can follow the latest on food systems sustainability by subscribing to TABLE’s newsletter Fodder.
Matthew
This episode was edited by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue Dot Sessions.
