Open Municipal Markets as Networked Ecosystems for Resilient Food Systems

This study advances the reconceptualization of Open municipal markets (OMMs) as networked ecosystems that connect food producers, vendors and citizenship across rural and urban contexts, sustaining short food supply chains and reinforcing territorial resilience through the interplay of mobility and embeddedness. Aimed at understanding OMMs as components of a broader, networked and adaptable food ecosystem, the research introduces a new methodology that builds on existing scholarship framing markets as relational and mobile spaces. It contributes to the literature by integrating these perspectives into an ecosystemic lens. By applying a mobility-based approach, the research shifts attention from static views of markets to their dynamic and circulatory nature, highlighting their role in fostering more sustainable and socially rooted food systems. Focusing on 105 OMMs in the Province of Girona (Spain), the research combines spatial analysis and data analysis of 300 surveys completed by 300 stallholders to examine how mobility practices shape market dynamics. The paper provides a new methodology of market stallholders and types of markets as well as four key indicators (recurrence, variety, closeness and rootedness) to assess stallholder activity and territorial embeddedness. These findings reveal that stallholders, particularly producers, connect rural production with urban consumption through flexible and multi-scalar circuits. The paper advocates for ecosystem-based urban food planning that harnesses stallholder mobility to strengthen territorial cohesion and food sovereignty, positioning OMMs as strategic public facilities for resilient and socially responsible food systems.