FROM ORGANIC TO POST-ORGANIC MOVEMENT? MOVEMENT AND CONSUMER CULTURE IN THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIC AGRICULTURE IN ITALY

This essay aims to investigate the development of the organic agriculture movement and the evolution over time of its movement and consumer culture. The analysis is especially focused on the most recent evolution of the sector in the Italian context, which is characterized by a consumerist inflection and an institutionalization of the sector that, in parallel with its growth, leads to talk of a possible "conventionalization" of organic agriculture. The discussion, therefore, takes up the hypothesis of a "post-organic movement", which is considered as a reaction to the above-mentioned processes and especially characterized also as a consumerist movement, identifiable in Italy in those alternative food networks characterized by the so-called solidarity economy. The post-organic hypothesis is therefore mainly presented as an analytical perspective that allows to shed light on some fundamental aspects of the recent evolution of the organic movement, as well as on the organic sector in general.