Clara Santini, Impacts des Projets Alimentaires Territoriaux sur la gouvernance alimentaire territoriale : quelles contributions à la transition du système alimentaire des territoires ?

Abstract: This PhD research analyzes the capacity of Territorial Food Projects (TFPs) to strengthen territorial food governance, and the processes through which such strengthening can help institutionalize a process of reterritorialization of the Territorial Food System (TFS). To answer this question, the research combined a survey of Occitanie’s TFPs, case studies and theoretical analyses, with a composite theoretical framework anchored in institutional economics. The thesis demonstrates the ability of TFPs to strengthen the potential for collective action in territories. It first characterizes the uniformity versus diversity of TFPs, between standardization by the national framework and territorial specificities expressed through governance. It then shows that the TFPs plan a systemic and structuring intervention, via an interfacing posture between niches and regime—following the multilevel perspective approach on sociotechnical transitions. Finally, the thesis highlights the contribution of TFP governance, and more specifically the complementarity of its modalities to the activation of four transition levers.