Byg, Reed Lauren2020-07-082020-07-082020-07-07vt_gsexam:26685http://hdl.handle.net/10919/99295Ohio is one of the largest agricultural producers in the United States and yet Ohioans experience food insecurity at a rate two percent higher than the national average. An analysis of Ohio's agricultural sector in relation to the current global food system suggests that the neoliberal imaginary orders social and ecological relations at both the international and domestic levels. This ordering perpetuates and justifies the continued exploitation of both labor and land and is based on ontological separation of human and ecological systems. This imaginary has given rise to the framework of food security, which has become the singular framework under which solutions to food and climate challenges are outlined by both local policy makers and major development and agricultural organizations. This effectively limits the possible solutions to only those solutions that fit within this imaginary. In considering the continued prevalence of food insecurity in both national and international contexts, it is necessary to explore other avenues for proposing solutions to the current food challenges, which will only grow as the impacts of climate change worsen. Food sovereignty, more specifically urban food sovereignty, offers an alternative ontological framework that expands the realm of possible solutions to food insecurity as a feature of the food sovereignty movement's recognition of multiple ways of being.ETDIn Copyrightfood securityurban food sovereigntyfood systemsontologyThesis