Phenomenological reflections on the structure of transformation: The example of sustainable agriculture

Abstract

“But above all, we are the seeds: and we make ready to throw ourselves out of ourselves and into something else, something much higher, something that carries the name of spring… To be inside the phenomena, always inside them: to be seed and always to lean upon your own earth.” – from Nichita Stănescu, “A unsprezecea elegie” (Stănescu 1977: 97). After outlining how putting phenomenological methods into practice can help to foster an attitude conducive to cultural transformation, I consider both mainstream and alternative ways in which the sense, “food”, is constituted and present some parallels between the constitution of the “physicalistic thing” and the constitution of the “commodity”, concluding with some remarks on the importance of a phenomenological retrieval of situated lived experience.