1st Edition
Food Transgressions Making Sense of Contemporary Food Politics
Reconnecting so-called alternative food geographies back to the mainstream food system - especially in light of the discursive and material 'transgressions' currently happening between alternative and conventional food networks, this volume critically interrogates and evaluates what stands for 'food politics' in these spaces of transgression now and in the near future and addresses questions such as: What constitutes 'alternative' food politics specifically and food politics more generally when organic and other 'quality' foods have become mainstreamed? What has been the contribution so far of an 'alternative food movement' and its potential to leverage further progressive change and/or make further inroads into conventional systems? What are the empirical and theoretical bases for understanding the established and growing 'transgressions' between conventional and alternative food networks? Offering a better understanding of the evolving position of the corporate food system vis a vis alternative food networks, this book considers the prospects for economic, social, cultural and material transformations led by an increasingly powerful and legitimated alternative food network.
Biography
Michael K. Goodman is Senior Lecturer at King's College London, UK; Colin Sage is Senior Lecturer at the University of Cork, Ireland.
’Food Transgressions challenges us to rethink how we categorize, explain and evaluate food networks. It emphasizes the ways in which real world actors and networks routinely defy classification and embrace contradiction. By treating boundary-crossing as a norm, not an aberration, Food Transgressions offers a moment of genuine theoretical innovation in food studies.’ Stewart Lockie, The Australian National University, Australia ’Food Transgressions is a delightful collection of immensely thoughtful essays. Goodman and Sage, with the aid of a wise ensemble of contributing authors, highlight how food not only helps maintain modernity’s categorical edges but can also serve as a potential vehicle to recreate those boundaries anew.’ Michael S. Carolan, Colorado State University, USA ’Running through this book is the tantalising concept of transgression, a concept the authors employ to convey the multiple ways in which food is a quintessentially boundary-breaking phenomenon. Transgressive foods and food transgressions are prisms through which the book explores the ethics, governance and geographies of food. Written by leading authors in their fields, this book is a major contribution to the burgeoning field of food studies.’ Kevin Morgan, Cardiff University, UK ’This collection offers fascinating insights into contemporary food practices such as fair-trade, community-supported agriculture, Slow Food, organic production, supermarket concentration, and meat-eating, by showing how they transgress dichotomies between conventional and alternative foodways and both uphold and challenge local power structures and global geopolitics.’ Carole Counihan, Professor Emerita, Millersville University, USA, and co-editor of Taking Food Public: Redefining Foodways in a Changing World
