2025/10/30 by Carolina Milhorance, Magalie Bourblanc, Sara Mercandalli · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Social Sciences · #Urban Agriculture and Sustainability #Organic Food and Agriculture #Local Economic Development and Planning
paper · doi:10.1080/1523908x.2025.2577214
openalex created_date 2025/10/30 · openalex publication_date 2025/10/30 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
Urban food insecurity is increasingly framed as a wicked problem, yet governance responses often rely on normative ideals of coordination and participation, overlooking how historical dispossession, market dependence, and informal authority constrain adaptive action. This article examines food system governance in Breede Valley Municipality, a South African secondary city marked by decentralization without devolution and structural fragmentation. Using the governance capabilities framework – reflexivity, responsiveness, resilience, revitalization, and rescaling – and drawing on semi-structured interviews and document analysis, the study explores how governance capabilities are shaped by unequal access to land and water, entrenched agribusiness interests, and contested decision-making spaces. The findings extend the governance capabilities approach by emphasizing its political, relational, and context-dependent nature. The study contributes to wicked problem governance debates by reframing capabilities as relational and political practices shaped by historical dispossession, coalition dynamics, and institutional legacies, and showing that capabilities emerge not from institutional design alone.