Governing the “Food Matter”: urban food policies as new arenas of urban governance

This essay will deal with changes in contemporary forms of public regulation occurring at the urban level. On the one hand cities are directly involved in processes of redistribution of power among different political scales. On the other at the urban level is possible to observe the inclusion of non-institutional actors in the production and implementation of public policies. This paper will introduce the “food matter” as a new field of study for social sciences to analyse these political changes. The analysis will focus on the case of Urban Food Policies (UFPs) which are rapidly spreading in Italy and also at a global level. UFPs will allow to observe how cities are “taking possession” of food matter and how public actors are experimenting the construction of urban food policy networks. In particular, UFPs will be interpreted as new emerging forms of urban governance arenas where local governments, private players and a third sector are engaged in the management of local food system.