Risk and responsibility in the corporate food regime: research pathways beyond the COVID-19 crisis

Abstract

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has focused renewed public attention on the risks and harms generated by a globalized, industrialized, and corporatized food system. This crisis reinvigorates the need for a research agenda that identifies compelling ways of holding key actors in the corporate food regime accountable for creating and profiting from systemic risk in the food system. We draw upon theoretical conceptions of “risk,” “rights,” and “(ir)responsibility” to raise questions about how to move beyond narrow liberal notions of responsibility for postpandemic recovery. Redefining responsibility could be transformative in the pursuit of corporate accountability for past and present harms, and in financing pathways towards less risky, more resilient, and more just food systems of the future.