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Drawing on non-representational theory, using as an example the work of Gilles Deleuze, we offer a complementary perspective on critical institutionalism. We examine four case studies of community-based water management in the Upper West Region of Ghana, which has empowered communities and encouraged democratically accountable approaches, while also underpinning discriminatory practices. We find this can be attributed to institutional bricolage, but we argue that non-representational theory also provides an alternative orientation to our data. It allows the agency of disempowered individuals to be recast as acts of hope.

Food systems are primary drivers of human and environmental health, but the understanding of their diverse and dynamic co-transformation remains limited. We use a data-driven approach to disentangle different development pathways of national food systems (i.e. ‘transformation archetypes’) based on historical, intertwined trends of food system structure (agricultural inputs and outputs and food trade), and social and environmental outcomes (malnutrition, biosphere integrity, and greenhouse gases emissions) for 161 countries, from 1995 to 2015. We found that whilst agricultural total factor productivity has consistently increased globally, a closer analysis suggests a typology of three transformation archetypes across countries: rapidly expansionist, expansionist, and consolidative. Expansionist and rapidly expansionist archetypes increased in agricultural area, synthetic fertilizer use, and gross agricultural output, which was accompanied by malnutrition, environmental pressures, and lasting socioeconomic disadvantages. The lowest rates of change in key structure metrics were found in the consolidative archetype. Across all transformation archetypes, agricultural greenhouse gases emissions, synthetic fertilizer use, and ecological footprint of consumption increased faster than the expansion of agricultural area, and obesity levels increased more rapidly than undernourishment decreased. The persistence of these unsustainable trajectories occurred independently of improvements in productivity. Our results underscore the importance of quantifying the multiple human and environmental dimensions of food systems transformations and can serve as a starting point to identify potential leverage points for sustainability transformations. More attention is thus warranted to alternative development pathways able of delivering equitable benefits to both productivity and to human and environmental health.

This paper offers a rethinking of justice in city-regional food systems planning from the perspective of urban food enterprise (UFE). UFEs are socially innovative business practices that seek alternative, local responses to conventional food systems, from inputs through to resource recovery and waste management. They operate under several legal designations, with diversity in both the scale and scope of business practices that span all stages of this cycle. Yet in this paper I highlight how the pluralism of these urban initiatives offers a means towards rethinking the idea of justice in city-regional food systems planning. I argue that when UFEs are framed as emergent and co-evolutionary practices, the act of doing food justice is consequently a function of pragmatic real-life choices for these organizations. Moreover, while this embrace of the pluralism of UFE practices in cities requires an appreciation of the diversity of entrepreneurial activity, the act of doing food justice raises fundamental questions surrounding what constitutes a pragmatist ethics in city-regional food systems planning.