Sustainable food? Teikei, co-operatives and food citizenship in Japan and the UK

This paper explores in particular how Teikei groups, as forms of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), operate in Japan, focussing on one particular group. The paper links the Teikei approach to debates around social capital and consumer-citizenship, arguing that pre-existing consumer/citizen institutions may usefully be engaged in developing food citizenship and CSA operations. The discussion is linked to CSA and various other alternative food networks (AFNs) that have grown up in various forms in Japan, the US, the UK and elsewhere in Europe over the past thirty years or so. CSA in similar fashion to Teikei involves bringing producers and consumers closer together in terms of reconnecting the agricultural producer and consumer to aid food traceability and quality (including organic). CSA also exhibits elements of new assemblies of agricultural governance based on enhanced consumer-citizenship where consumers, to varying degrees, have a say in what and how produce is grown and how the land is managed.

Land, rights and the gift: the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 and the negotiation of citizenship

The Countryside and Rights of Way Act came into force at the end of 2000 with,as part of its content, new provisions relating to public access to the English and Welsh countryside. In this paper we review the main elements of the Act and assess its meaning in relation to citizenship, territoriality and the place of land in English law and society. We invoke Mauss’s (1954)concept of Gift to explain the process of brokerage being made over access and rights in the countryside. In conclusion we reflect on the Act as being indicative of a wider move towards Bromley’s (1998)post-feudal scenario for land and its governance.

Leisure, consumerism and active citizenship in the UK

Since the first election victory of the Thatcher administration in 1979, Britain has witnessed a cultural transformation from the municipal socialism enshrined in the post-World War 2 development of the Welfare State to a form of post-industrial entrepreneurialism based largely on market rationality. This has had a profound effect on all aspects of civil life, not least the redefinition of the role of active leisure. Since the late 1950s the dominant policy for active leisure has been 'Sport For All', an assertion of a social right too important to be left to the market. The transformation has, therefore, signalled a shift from government support for active leisure as an element of citizen rights to the use of leisure to promote the government's interest in legitimating a new social order based not on rights but on means. Thus access to active living is no longer a societal goal for all, but a discretionary consumer good, the consumption of which signifies 'active' citizenship. It furthermore signifies differentiation from the growing mass of 'deviants' who are unwilling or unable to embrace this new construction of citizenship and are, therefore, increasingly denied access to active living and, hence, active citizenship.

Rights, citizenship and access to the countryside

This paper presents a reading of current UK Government policy on recreational access to the countryside of England, in terms of its citizenship and rights agenda. Given the continuity of traditional forms of land tenure and occupation, it is argued that the policy is less of recognition of the changing needs of a tranisitory society than it is a revisionist menifesto for resisting external influence and change. This is particularly so in terms of recreation, where the underlying organisation of the physical environment has been appropriated to reproduce a reflection of the social order which increasingly descriminates between culturally legitimate and illegitimate uses of rural space.

Independence referendums: who should vote and who should be offered citizenship?

In this EUDO CITIZENSHIP Forum Debate, several authors consider the interrelations between eligibility criteria for participation in independence referendum (that may result in the creation of a new independent state) and the determination of putative citizenship ab initio (on day one) of such a state. The kick-off contribution argues for resemblance of an independence referendum franchise and of the initial determination of the citizenry, critically appraising the incongruence between the franchise for the 18 September 2014 Scottish independence referendum, and the blueprint for Scottish citizenship ab initio put forward by the Scottish Government in its 'Scotland's Future' White Paper. Contributors to this debate come from divergent disciplines (law, political science, sociology, philosophy). They reflect on and contest the above claims, both generally and in relation to regional settings including (in addition to Scotland) Catalonia/Spain, Flanders/Belgium, Quebec/Canada, Post-Yugoslavia and Puerto-Rico/USA.

Social citizenship, housing wealth and the cost of social care: is the Care Act 2014 'Fair'?

This article assesses the extent to which it is ‘fair’ for the government to require owner-occupiers to draw on the equity accumulated in their home to fund their social care costs. The question is stimulated by the report of the Commission on Funding of Care and Support, Fairer Care Funding (the Dilnot Commission) and the subsequent Care Act 2014. The enquiry is located within the framework of social citizenship and the new social contract. It argues that the individualistic, contractarian approach, exemplified by the Dilnot Commission and reflected in the Act, raises questions when considered from the perspective of intergenerational fairness. We argue that our concerns with the Act could be addressed by inculcating an expectation of drawing on housing wealth to fund older age: a policy of asset-based welfare.