Conclusiones del Trabajo

Participants who were active members/users/supporters saw Source as contesting business-as-usual at the university. For example, Laura, an academic who uses Source to have lunch and shop, commented that she liked the fact that she can “buy food grown in Sandy Bay, and if it is not grown at Source then it is, at least, sourced from places that I trust, … places I want to buy from”. The trust many participants invested in Source was linked to the fact that “it’s not to make profit” identity (Mary/community active member). This indicates that Source is not just primarily about food sourcing or production but also a response to deeply political and culturally vexed issues. For example, when asked whether UTAS could provide more support to Source, Jeremy (community active member) commented that rather than “support the Source building” it would be more important for the university “to support the Source mission”. He

154 explained that that the university “hinders what we are trying to achieve” as evidenced by its “hav[ing] invested in fossil fuels” (Jeremy/community active member). Jeremy draws attention to how active members of Source seek to contest what the university invests in. Jeremy made this explicit when he noted that a number of Source’s members participated in the 2015 sit-in at Sandy Bay Campus demanding that the university divest from fossil fuels.

Sara also focused on what the university invests in when comparing Source to Lazenby’s which is a café located in the middle of the Sandy Bay Campus. Sara commented that Lazenby’s is

perpetuating a culture that we, you know, I think we need to move away from because it is not supporting local produce … it’s not supporting fair trade products … it’s not supporting healthy eating, even, really. It’s not helping people think about their food (professional staff member).

Bruce also compared Source to Lazenby’s by commenting that

Lazenby’s in lots of ways is an up-market cafeteria that is very nicely finished in a much more central location. [Source on the hand], If you get more than 10 people, you can’t sit down. It’s very dependent on the weather (academic staff/Vice Chancellor’s Executive).

Bruce (academic staff/Vice Chancellor’s Executive) highlighted what many other participants who use Source also noted: that it offers a “very different experience” and it “doesn’t feel like part of the normal fabric of the way we [the university] do things”. Greta (professional staff) expressed this in terms of how Source is seen as encouraging people to think differently “perhaps by all the different images and things that are there

155 and what people are saying and conversations”. Greta clearly makes a link between the symbology of Source, the discursive interaction which is supported there, and how all of this can affect and potentially change one’s thinking. Similarly, Karl (academic staff/active member) commented that Source “provides an alternative view of the system”. His use of the term ‘the system’ was associated with corporate culture and its reliance on an economic system that treats nature and people as resources to be exploited. Mary explained how corporate ideals are internalised within the conventional food production system:

like Woolworths and Coles the supermarkets. These big companies dominate the Australian food market. They have a lot of power and that plays out in our farming systems … I don’t feel that they pay farmers fairly to look after their land for the long term, and to have a good livelihood (community active member).

Corporate practices of making profit, separating consumers from producers, concentrating and centralising control, and treating farmers unethically, are core themes within Mary’s account of the conventional food production system. In this context, the goal of Source is to “take back power over our food system from big for- profit companies” (Mary/community active member). Mary implied that corporate interests within the modern, industrialised food system provide food to consumers without wanting them to think critically about where it comes from and how it is produced. For her and many other active members such a system treats food simply as commodity for production, circulation and consumption with emphasis only on capitalistic exchange.

156 Creating a concern over how and where food is produced is clearly important to active members of Source contesting corporate culture and contesting these elements within the university. A sign that this is confronting to conventional food service providers on campus and university operational managers are active member accounts that in the early days of Source the university prohibited it from selling meals/drinks and putting up signage. Kelly explained:

“the university has pandered to them a lot [contracted food service provider], so we weren’t allowed to sell hot lunches because they got upset. We weren’t allowed to put a notice board advertising the hot lunches because it was a trip Hazard, but Lazenby’s can have one” (active member/student).

Suggested by Kelly is that not only was Source viewed as potential threatening to conventional food service providers on campus, but bureaucratic process within the university made it difficult for Source to achieve the aim of becoming visible on campus.

Creating concern at Source is, however, more than just about creating symbols which make people think of alternatives. By connecting producer and consumer (often embodied as one), and by localising food production (within communities), the critical thinking promoted by Source is also rendered in practical terms. Karl (academic staff/active member) emphasised this point when he commented that Source is “activist in the way it lives its life, in the way it is in the world” but different from an activist organisation as it is “not demanding the university divest of fossil fuels” even though “probably our [Source’s] members are - but that is up to them”. Important here is the distinction between Source the organisational entity and its members and what they might or might not do with their learnings and experiences. As Mary (community

157 active member) outlined, Source is “a nurturing place, I guess, for new activists to gain confidence” and does not demand that its members think in a certain way. For active members critical thinking is part of nurturing activism by providing a place where people can engage in dialogue with others over their concerns, be supported in expressing and exploring these concerns, and enact alternative practices in response to these concerns. This type of critical thinking has helped individuals involved with Source to take a stand and work towards changing conventions around food production and consumption and within other capitalist systems.