In its current state, the global food system is socially and
ecologically unsustainable: nearly two billion people are food
insecure, and food systems are the number one contributor to climate
change. While agro-industrial production is promoted as the solution
to these problems, growing global "food sovereignty"
movements are challenging this model by demanding local and
democratic control over food systems. Translating Food Sovereignty
accompanies activists based in the Pacific Northwest of the United
States as they mobilize the claim of food sovereignty across local,
regional, and global arenas of governance. In contrast to social
movements that frame their claims through the language of human
rights, food sovereignty activists are one of the first to have
articulated themselves in relation to the neoliberal transnational
order of networked governance. While this global regulatory framework
emerged to deepen market logics, Matthew C. Canfield reveals how
activists are leveraging this order to make more expansive social
justice claims. This nuanced, deeply engaged ethnography illustrates
how food sovereignty activists are cultivating new forms of
transnational governance from the ground up.