1st Edition
The Global Governance of Food
Food provides a particularly exciting and grounded research site for understanding the mechanisms governing global transactions in the 21st century. While food is intimately and fundamentally related to ecological and human well-being, food products now travel far flung trade routes to reach us. International trade in food has tripled in value and quadrupled in volume since 1960 and tracing the production, movement, transformation, and consumption of food necessitates research that situates localities within global networks and facilitates our capacity to "see the trees and the forest" by zooming from the global to the local and back to the global.
Our need for food is a constant; how we acquire food is a variable; and the production, commercialization, and consumption of food therefore offer an invaluable window onto the globalization of the world we inhabit. Food provides an ideal site for answering the fundamental questions of governance of central concern to globalization debates. This book presents recent and interdisciplinary scholarship about the variety of mechanisms governing global food systems and their impacts on human and environmental well-being
This book was previously published as a special issue of Globalizations
1. Introduction: Agriculture, Trade, and the Global Governance of Food Abigail M. Cooke, Sara R. Curran, April Linton and Andrew Schrank Part 1: Global Complexities and Local Dynamics 2. The Global Complexity Framework Sara R. Curran 3. Unexpected Outcomes of Thai Cassava Trade: A Case of Global Complexity and Local Unsustainability Sara R. Curran and Abigail M. Cooke 4. The Bitter Harvest of Gambian Rice Policies Judith A. Carney 5. Sugar’s Political By-Product: The Caribbean Basin Initiative Andrew Schrank 6. Globalizing Unsustainable Food Consumption: Trade Policies, Producer Lobbies, Consumer Preferences, and Beef Consumption in Northeast Asia Sjur Kasa Part 2: Responses to Global Complexity—Branding and Certification 7. Branding and Certification Abigail M. Cooke 8. Aquaculture, Trade, and Fisheries Linkages: Unexpected Synergies Rebecca J. Goldburg 9. Global Resources and Market Impacts on US Pacific Northwest Fisheries Michael T. Morrissey 10. Places, Chains, and Plates: Governing Transitions in the Shrimp Aquaculture Production-Consumption System Louis Lebel, Phimphakan Lebel, Po Garden, Dao Huy Giap, Supaporn Khrutmuang and Sachiko Nakayama Part 3: Responses to Global Complexity—Ethical Trade 11. Ethical Trade Initiatives April Linton 12. A Niche for Sustainability? Fair Labor and Environmentally Sound Practices in the Specialty Coffee Industry April Linton 13. Linking Consumers to Sustainability: Incorporating Science into Eco-friendly Certification Thomas V. Dietsch and Stacy M. Philpott 14. Are Sustainable Coffee Certifications Enough to Secure Farmer Livelihoods? The Millenium Development Goals and Nicaragua’s Fair Trade Cooperatives Christopher M. Bacon, V. Ernesto Mendez, Maria Eugenia Flores Gomez, Douglas Stuart and Sandro Raul Diaz Flores 15. Is Fair Trade-Organic Coffee Sustainable in the Face of Migration? Evidence from a Oaxacan Community Jessa Lewis and David Runsten 16. Fair Trade Wine: South Africa’s Post-Apartheid Vineyards and the Global Economy William G. Moseley 17. In the Mists of Development: Fairtrade in Kenyan Tea Fields Catherine S. Dolan 19. Conclusion: Negotiating the Dynamics of Global Complexity Abigail M. Cooke, Sara R. Curran, April Linton and Andrew Schrank
Biography
Sara R. Curran is an Associate Professor of International Studies & Public Affairs at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington. Dr. Curran has written Shifting Boundaries, Transforming Lives: Globalization, gender, and family dynamics in Thailand (forthcoming, Princeton University Press) and with Ellen Perecman edited A Handbook for Social Science Field Research: Essays & Bibliographic Sources on Research Design and Methods (Sage Publications, 2006).
April Linton is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and University of California at San Diego. Her work addresses many aspects of globalization including international migration, translational social movements, and the ethics of consumption. Currently Dr. Linton is researching the development impacts of Fair Trade in the global South.
Abigail Cooke is a doctoral student in Geography at the University of California at Los Angeles. She studies trade and patterns of wage inequality. She has conducted research on laughing records, T.V., medical personnel, the cassava export industry in Thailand, and the local effects of global transactions.
Andrew Schrank is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico. He works on the organization, regulation, and performance of industry—especially in Latin America.
