x, 131 p.   A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.This study centers on contentions within the U.S. food system. The policy conflict
arises between the conventional food system and emerging issues of local food security.
The framework of the conventional food system is contested by groups claiming that
individual food security would increase if our food system were re-localized and
facilitated by a food policy council of local food system stakeholders. Following Benford
and Snow (2000), this study investigates the political, cultural and historical contexts of
Lane County, Oregon's food system and assesses how food security is re-framed at the
local level as community food security. Drawing upon the concepts of "core framing
tasks" and discursive and strategic processes, this study illustrates how the flexibility of
the community food security frame enables the rebuilding of the local food system,
borrowing systems thinking from local watershed councils. Drawing on systems thinking
enables a variety of combinable and re-combinable relationships among stakeholders
from the diversity of food systems, such as the conventional, sustainable, alternative and
emergency food systems.Adviser: Gerald
Ber