Agri-food activism and the imagination of the possible

Research on food activism has generated some very productive critique of the ways in which it seems to produce and reproduce neoliberal logics. The literature alludes to the appearance of foreclosed options in today's environment of neoliberal capitalism, but there has been very little exploration of how what is considered possible is established, maintained and contested in and by food activism. I argue that by paying more attention to the operation of 'the possible', critical scholarship might contribute to opening new spaces of both thought and action. To that end, I introduce theoretical considerations that contribute to understanding present-day limited imagination of the possible. I then turn to the problem of how to 'think possibility' from within such narrowed imagination, and following Alain Badiou, suggest locating possibility in those elements that are made to 'inexist' within a situation. I argue that a recoding of the possible must invoke ideals, practices and potentials that are already present all around us. Applying these theoretical orientations to food activism, I identify some of its liberatory aspirations, and suggest that naming and exploring these spaces is essential to amplifying their potentials and disrupting limited imagination of the possible.