Commoning, access, and sovereignty: Disentangling land- food relations in the case of peasant livestock farmers in Romania

From seeds to land and knowledge, protecting the commons and participating in commoning practices are considered essential for the realization of food sovereignty (FS). Nonetheless, the relationship between land-based institutions, and existing commoning experience and their impact on FS in the Global North is underexplored. The persistence of historical land commons institutions in Romania and the high occurrence of small-scale livestock farmers compared to the rest of the European Union's member states offer a fertile ground for empirical inquiries to investigate these relationships in an expanding neoliberal (land) market regime. The overarching methodological approach for this study consists of multi-sited ethnographic research based both on fieldwork and historical analysis of secondary sources. The study unravels the bundle of power relations that shape access to land and food production practices for small- and medium-sized livestock farmers in Southern Transylvania. The main findings suggest that there is a continuous tension in making and remaking property relations which threatens the existence of traditional commons and agroecological knowledge. In this interplay, peasants and small-scale producers are not passive actors, but individuals with their agency, interests, and powers. The concept of quiet sovereignty helps us to grasp the hidden dynamics of resistance and everyday attempts to counter the penetration of the global food industry into the territorial markets and local food culture and practices. The extent to which these interests and actions are directed toward collective rather than private goals will determine the potential for the land commons and agroecological practices to resist neoliberal forces and support “FS” in Romania.