A research project on a Local food system in Finland, Sweden & Latvia

Category: Outreach

  • Rethinking REKO Through Marketplace Mythologies

    Rethinking REKO Through Marketplace Mythologies

    In this blog post, I share some of my ideas about how the REKO local food network functions as a socio-material space shaped by powerful marketplace mythologies. My thinking is based on seeing these myths as the shared narratives and practices that influence what we see as “normal” or “good” in market life. REKO is…

  • Data is the new oil: The misalignment between Facebook’s values and the ethos of REKO

    In my previous blog post, I reflected on the uneasy relationship between REKO and Facebook, framing it as a dependency shaped by opaque algorithmic governance and platform power. That reflection ended with an open question: where do we go from here? Several months later, the answer remains unresolved, but it has become clearer that REKO’s…

  • Alternative Food Worldings

    Alternative Food Worldings

    In a previous blog post, Hanna and Evianna position REKO as an alternative post-growth marketplace “characterized by unique production and consumption practices”. Inspired by this perspective and the broader discussion of local food systems (LFSs) as alternatives, I propose in this blog post that REKO can be understood as a specific form of worlding. It is well established that…

  • REKO AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO … WHAT?

    REKO AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO … WHAT?

    REKO is an alternative local food network (Leipämaa-Leskinen, 2021). But what is REKO an alternative to? This is a question that has puzzled us since we started exploring REKO in 2013 and revisited it in 2023. In this blog text, we reflect on the question through our past and current ethnographic research. Hanna has been…

  • A reflection on the unexpected intersection of social media, alternative food markets, and the complexities of algorithmic governance

    In 2010, I began researching the impact of social media on the boundary between work and personal life. This was six years after Facebook’s inception and six years before the introduction of Facebook Marketplace and the formalization of platform-based buying and selling. At the time, I couldn’t have foreseen the emergence of alternative food markets…