300-400 words
There is much discussion of late of the concept of “food sovereignty”, which is proposed by many to be a “better” way to conceptualize things than what is now the more traditional idea of “food security”; yet others are not convinced. To take part in this important debate, one can give arguments for and against making this shift in our concepts.
But as critical thinkers (or perhaps budding philosophers) you should also note that an important question to be asked more carefully would be “What exactly does this mean?” Some of this is captured in various official definitions that have been given (for instance, by Via Campesina), but this won’t resolve everything. We can still wonder about whether the idea (or the proposal about what we should do) is importantly vague or ambiguous (or in need of further specification) if it is genuinely going to help us, or if we are going to be able genuinely to evaluate whether we should get on board.
You are to imagine that you are at a working group of people debating the value of the “food sovereignty” idea, and that your task is to present a short document (say, 300-400 words) in which you identify some important way in which their concept or proposal is vague, ambiguous or just unclear. You needn’t be taking a side one way or the other – for instance, you might want to hold back until the concept or proposal is made clear. Rather, you should see yourself as genuinely trying to help the group make progress on deciding what position to be trying to push for.
Your thesis should be something like “The concept of food sovereignty is “importantly vague or ambiguous” (or something like that) in the following way or ways….. (And remember to make your claims as clear and precise as you can.)
You should of course somehow explain why that unclarity is significant (for instance, different ways of interpreting it affect whether or not it is a plausible view, or what actions it would recommend to us).
But again, there is no need to go beyond arguing that there is this unclarity; it is not part of the assignment to state (and argue) whether you are for or against making this shift to “food sovereignty” (or whether, for instance, you think that we should use bothconcepts).
As always, make these remarks in a way that shows that you understand and have been thinking about the issues we are reading about and discussing in class.
It is required that you use (and cite) the Wittman, et al. article. （I have already upload the Wittman article in the document I provide)
