Methodological Considerations and Reflections of Mental Systems Mapping within an Alternative Food Community
Abstract
Cross-disciplinary consensus indicates that current food systems operate unsustainably and contribute significantly to global climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation. Extreme events in recent years have drawn public attention to the serious socio-ecological challenges facing conventional food supply and consumption patterns. Our study aims to present, through a real-life example, the technique of mental modelling. Mental modelling, which belongs to the methodological family of systems mapping, is a suitable tool for holistic interpretation and representation of complex systems such as food systems, which provides an opportunity to map the systemic interrelatedness of problems and intervention points. The community involved in the research is the Farmer-Miller-Baker network, which includes actors engaged in the production of bakery products from environmentally friendly and ethically produced bread grains. The empirical background for the study is provided by mental models based on direct elicitation from ten network members. These models, developed through co-creation using semi-structured interviews, reveal participants’ cognitive constructs describing the unsustainable nature of the conventional bakery value chain and identify potential leverage points for sustainability transition. Our study focuses primarily on methodology, detailing the process of collecting and processing empirical data, and illustrating the method’s advantages, limitations, and further application possibilities.
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