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Copyright of Natures Sciences Sociétés is the property of EDP Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper investigates the role and future of short food chains supplying cities in developing countries. It is based on a conceptual framework on proximity (mostly used in developed countries and tested here in developing contexts), surveys in Vietnam on the organisation of vegetable chains supplying urban markets, as well as surveys in Africa and secondary empirical data. In line with the predictions of spatial economics, short food chains are dominant in the supply of perishable produce, e.g. leafy vegetables in Vietnam, as in a number of cities of Africa and Asia. There are instances where farmers and consumers are active in taking advantage of regular interactions, especially to promote food quality and safety, in a context of growing concerns on the part of consumers for their health. The paper concludes with some features of short food chains in Asia and Africa.

Copyright of Natures Sciences Sociétés is the property of EDP Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Natures Sciences Sociétés is the property of EDP Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper highlights the major political ecological perspectives in the Anglophone literature on socioecological relations with emphasis on three main theoretical framings: environmental/social dialectic; environmental constructivism; and the co-production of socionature. These framings resonate with the literature’s conceptualization of nature-society relations in terms of the destruction, construction, and co-production of nature. The paper discusses the ontological and epistemological foundations of each perspective, their main methodological approaches, and the signature theoretical contributions to understanding socioecological relations. Case studies illustrate the thematic and theoretical orientation of each perspective. In the conclusion we highlight some of the common theoretical threads that connect these perspectives, notably their dialectical approaches, an emphasis on power relations, the notion that ecology is a social relation, and an emphasis on the nonequilibrium character of socioecological systems.

To date, most debates about transdisciplinarity (TD) have been dominated by Western institutions. This paper proposes insights from the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN), Kyoto, Japan, from an investigation as a visiting scientist. After describing its unique project-based organization, I first show that the development of TD at RIHN faces some common challenges, such as TD evaluation, education and upscaling (beyond local contexts). Yet, collaborations with stakeholders have also unique specificities (importance of the group, rigidity of institutions, different ways of interacting…). Moreover, most RIHN researchers claim to have a particularly practical approach to TD. At the level of the whole institute, RIHN gives a strong emphasis on the premise that environmental problems are rooted in human cultures and values. RIHN also develops a specific approach to scales, in which Asia serves as a nodal point between the local and global (‘Asia vision’). We suggest that RIHN’s emphasis on cultural roots and its nodal approach to scale might be themselves rooted in the Japanese culture.

Copyright of Natures Sciences Sociétés is the property of EDP Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Natures Sciences Sociétés is the property of EDP Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Agriculture offers a wide array of benefits to the urban ecosystem. In the United States, urban agricultural activities are rapidly increasing, both in sheer quantity and in the form in which it is manifest. This paper explores the role of normative frameworks in urban agriculture policy at the municipal level. Case study analysis of three cities − Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; and Minneapolis, Minnesota – seeks first to identify whether or not a normative framework is strategically employed and second, to assess the impact of the norm, or its absence, on urban agricultural initiatives.