Our societies face deadlocks at several scales when it comes to transitioning to more sustainable food systems. These deadlocks manifest, to mention a few, in the inability to effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change, or to change power structures and path dependencies hindering the transformation of our currently unsustainable food systems. Underlying causes for this, are grounded in persisting inequalities in terms of wealth and influence on decision making between and within societies. This is also seen in challenges to implement the UN Agenda 2030, where indicators show that we are not on track in implementing many of the Sustainable Development goals.

Promoting structural changes in our societies becomes a central theme. How can we re-enchant the earth? What are the economic, ecological, political, and therapeutic tools to recompose a system broken by the concentration of power? Perspectives of indigenous peoples and their movements remind us of the value of traditions, thought, and the cultural, political, and historical wealth of peoples coexisting with multiple systems of life (McNee 2021). These perspectives provide important alternatives to Western ontologies and ways of living through appealing to values such as diversity, integrity, co-dependency, and associability.

Addressing deadlocks in food systems demands deep reflections about the underlying structures and normative assumptions of unsustainable systems. Disruptions in such systems are required to change course (Benton 2023). The leverage points framework highlights points to intervene in systems. The framework defines deep leverage points as those targeting the design and intent of systems, whereas shallow leverage points address parameters and feedback (Abson et al. 2016). Deep leverage points include aspects of power (ways of knowledge distribution, governance, and interfering with system structures) and normative assumptions (goals of a system, underlying paradigms influencing the system structures, and the power to transcend these paradigms). Thus, the leverage points framework presents an entry point to the demanded deep reflection.

Furthermore, deep reflection opens space for creative narratives that respond to the required changes and proliferate images of care for a world that nourishes us and that we nourish.

In this workshop, we want to exchange among different epistemic communities and cultures from different world regions about beneficial ways of disrupting food systems for transformation. With a focus on the deep leverage points, we want to explore ways of working in different systems. The discussions will address such topics as normative assumptions of the different communities, scientific frameworks and paradigms in dealing with existing deadlocks, and the collaboration with societal actors in transdisciplinary transformative research. More specifically, we will work with the following guiding questions:

• What are the normative traditions, assumptions, worldviews that guide your research?

• What scientific frameworks and paradigms have you found to be particularly useful when working with complex sustainability problems and societal deadlocks in food systems?

• Which approaches have helped you in addressing these deadlocks in policies, markets or civic action?

• In what ways would you frame these approaches as levers for change?

The workshop applies a combination of mapping assumptions and research traditions in a first step to get an overview of the normative landscape of the involved participants; and the nomadic concepts method in a second step to more deeply reflect on different understandings of the participants.

Workshop design

First, the workshop starts off with 2-3 short input talks addressing the above-mentioned guiding questions. We strive for a variety of research and cultural traditions to open up the discussion. Second, we will collect the participants’ views on these questions on individual post-its and map them on a white board. Third, we will divide into 2-3 sub-groups depending on the number of participants and discuss the different understandings of key concepts such as the meaning of disrupting a system, role of research in and for sustainability transitions/transformations, influence of research in and its relations with societal processes. A short summary of each of the groups in the plenary will conclude the workshop.