Compromise in the making of urban agroecology: grassroots initiatives and the politics of experimentation in Madrid, Spain

In some cities, food movements are mobilizing around agroecology, using the materiality of their lived environment and their social interactions to put their vision of future food systems into practice. These initiatives unfold in contexts where resources are often limited, forcing trade-offs between activists' visions of agroecology and what they can do in the immediate future. Drawing on documentary research, 26 semi-structured interviews, and over 100 hours of observation, we examine the evolution of agroecology in Madrid, Spain, focusing on the deployment of three initiatives. We find that to cope with precarity, some activists adapt their practices by adopting scaling-up strategies that involve increasing the number of participants and collaborating with the City of Madrid. However, the political dimension of the simple acts like gardening or procuring agroecological food becomes less clear, raising questions and spurring debate within the social movement. The compromises made and the reflexive stance on what is gained and what is lost, we argue, ultimately are testament and contribute to agroecology's political vision and goals, albeit in ways that are perhaps quite different from those initially envisioned.