Identifying New Social Movements in Lithuania: The Case of Local Food

Abstract

This paper presents a New Social Movement approach to the studies of local food system development. It aims to identify whether local food initiatives coalesce into a movement in Lithuania, drawing on the characteristics derived from the New Social Movement theory. Discourse analysis and semi-structured interviews with representatives of local food organizations and initiatives are applied as main methods of the study. Results reveal that social processes around local food are characterized by much unified commitment of participants to a cause, moderately expressed opposition to the adversary of movement, and fainting networking among them. The evidence of all applied characteristics suggests that local food movement is present in Lithuania yet in the incoherent and insubstantial form.