Well-being in Alternative Economies: the role of shared commitments in the context of a spatially-extended alternative food network

Abstract

Alternative economies are built on shared commitments to improve subjects’ well-being. Traditional commercial markets, premised upon growth driven by separate actors pursuing personal material gain, lead to exploitation of some actors and to negligible well-being gains for the rest. Through resocializing economic relations and expanding the recognition of interdependence among the actors in a marketing system, economic domination and exploitation can be mitigated. We define shared commitments as a choice of a course of action in common with others. We empirically demonstrate the existence of shared commitments through an in-depth study of a spatially extended alternative food network in Turkey. Finally, we offer an inductive model of how shared commitments can be developed between local and non-local actors to bring new economies into being and improve the well-being of consumers and producers, localities, markets, and society.