Food system transformation, politics, and emotions: affective dissonance and (Un)making capitalism in the Western Balkans

This article explores the political doing of emotions in the making and unmaking of capitalism in food system transformations. While the depoliticized tendency of sustainability transition studies and the field’s neglect of emotions in processes of change are increasingly recognized, this article emphasizes how emotional (de)legitimization and the depoliticization of sustainability transformations are intertwined in ways that naturalize capitalism and uphold oppressive systems. Drawing on feminist standpoint epistemology and the concept of affective dissonance — a felt gap between lived experience and dominant narratives — an (auto-)ethnographic narrative analysis is conducted in a Western Balkan agricultural development project initiated by the foundation of a major agri-food company and its scientific partner. The analysis reveals a controversy between capitalist narratives of techno-optimism and modernization advanced by the project initiators, and underrepresented narratives of small- and medium-scale farmers that expose a gap between hegemonic optimism and lived experiences of pessimism and structural injustice. Auto-ethnographic evocative storytelling shows how emotions were mobilised by the company and its scientific partner to prevent a film screening intended to make these controversies visible and open reflexive dialogue. By exposing how emotional (de)legitimization along the lines of West/East and Modern/Traditional upholds power over more-than-capitalist narratives, this article concludes that affective dissonance can serve more-than-capitalist transformations as embodied knowledge for plural onto-epistemologies and transition pathways, as well as for forms of collective political mobilization rooted in affective solidarities that move beyond managerial control and alienating identity binaries.