Beyond the “Northern” and “Southern” Divide: Food and Space in Polish Consumer Cooperatives

Abstract

In this article, the authors analyze emerging alternative food networks (AFNs) in Poland—that is, newly established consumer cooperatives—focusing on how the networks’ members perceive food and the space of its production. This analysis leads to reflection on the division that exists in the subject literature between “northern” and “southern” AFNs. The authors argue that this division does not capture the complex situation of Central and Eastern Europe’s postsocialist countries. While one type of Polish cooperative—identified as “activist”—resembles “northern” AFNs in some respects, the “consumption-oriented” cooperatives evince many features of the “southern” type. It is argued that both types of cooperatives are built according to Western patterns, but there is an underlying understanding of food quality that defines their actual relations with producers and consumer choices, and this has much in common with the informal food networks prevalent during the socialist period. Therefore, alternative food networks in postsocialist countries require a new interpretation that may change the overall categorization of AFNs.