In-between Anxiety and Hope: Trusting an Alternative Among ‘Alternatives’ in the (Post) Organic Food Market in Turkey

Abstract

Abstract. This paper argues that in Turkey there are plural alternatives within the alternative food channels and even in the recently emerging post-organic movement, by offering comparative cases from largely ignored international literature on alternative food initiatives. It examines a growing consumer food cooperative, a popular natural food store, and a well-known organic farmers’ market in Turkey, which together are considered the most prominent alternative food channels in ?stanbul by varying consumer segments. It interrogates the hows and whys of what becomes a reliable alternative and for whom in this recent complexity. This research is based on thirty in-depth interviews with the consumers and producers of ?pek Han?m’s Farm, Ferikoy Organic Farmers’ Market, and Kad?koy Cooperative. It reveals that food anxiety, trust, and hope appear as crucial dynamics of alternative relationships in the organic and post-organic food market in Turkey. These affects are visibly influenced by the social, cultural, and economic capital of consumers and interlinked with the meanings consumers attribute to their food practices. These meanings are dynamically (re)constructed through certain trust-building strategies and discourses of the ‘alternative’ which are presented by various actors (producers, marketers, cooperatives) and the ways consumers negotiate them. This study also suggests that consumers’ varying forms of food anxiety and relationship to each alternative have different repercussions in terms of social and political visions about alternative food initiatives. The major difference is derived from whether they prioritize their bodily health with the mentality of ‘neoliberal governmentality’ or share some political ambitions and hope for transforming collectively the current agri-food system.