The Danish Organic Movement: From Social Movement to Market Mainstream and Beyond...?

Summary

The development of organic and with them various other forms of alternative food networks have been the subject of extensive research within the field of agro-food studies during the past 10–20 years. In that period, organic food has gained an increasing food market share and a wide number of Western countries, among them Denmark, can thus be termed mature organic markets. The maturation process, whereby the organic movement becomes an integrated part of the established food system is at first glance an obvious example of the cooptation of an alternative into the established mainstream. However, the development paths which can be termed ecological regionalisation as well as ecological postmodernisation, which have been facilitated by new means of consumption, both carry the promise of being able to transcend established dichotomies of ‘alternative’ and ‘mainstream’. The ways by which they challenge and develop the meanings of both ‘alternative’ and ‘mainstream’ is exactly by balancing between them.