Food Utopias

In this book the authors link issues surrounding food and alternative food movements to utopias and intentional communities. The chapters address theoretical aspects of food utopias and also present case studies from a range of contexts and regions, including Argentina, Italy, New Zealand, Switzerland and USA. These focus on key issues in contemporary food studies including equity, locality, the sacred, citizenship, community and food sovereignty.

Auteur

Paul Stock is Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and the Environmental Studies Program, University of Kansas, USA.

Michael Carolan is Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, Colorado State University, USA.

Christopher Rosin is Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Sustainability: Agriculture, Food, Energy, Environment, University of Otago, New Zealand.

Résumé
Food is a contentious and emotive issue, subject to critiques from multiple perspectives. Alternative food movements - including the different articulations of local, food miles, seasonality, food justice, food knowledge and food sovereignty - consistently invoke themes around autonomy, sufficiency, cooperation, mutual aid, freedom, and responsibility.In this stimulating and provocative book the authors link these issues to utopias and intentional communities. Using a food utopias framework presented in the introduction, they examine food stories in three interrelated and complementary ways: utopias as critique of existing systems; utopias as engagement with experimentation of the novel, the forgotten, and the hopeful in the future of the food system; and utopias as process that recognizes the time and difficulty inherent in changing the status quo.The chapters address theoretical aspects of food utopias and also present case studies from a range of contexts and regions, including Argentina, Italy, Switzerland and USA. These focus on key issues in contemporary food studies including equity, locality, the sacred, citizenship, community and food sovereignty. Food utopias offers ways forward to imagine a creative and convivial food system.

Contenu

Foreword: Food Utopias in Perspective Fred Kirschenmann Foreword Wes Jackson Part 1: Food and Utopias 1. Food Utopias: Hoping the Future of Agriculture Paul Stock, Michael Carolan, and Christopher Rosin 2. Everyday Life in Utopia: Food Lyman T. Sargent Part 2: Emergent Food Utopias 3. From the Nano to the Global Scale: New Utopian Solutions to Food Waste Grant Shoffstall and Zsuzsa Gille 4. 'We Should Have a Culture Around Food': Toward a Sustainable Food Utopia in the Ozark-Ouachita Bioregion Joshua Lockyer 5. Urban Agriculture as Embedded in the Social and Solidarity Economy Basel: Developing Sustainable Communities Isidor Walliman 6. Slow Food Presidia: The Nostalgic and the Utopian Cinzia Piatti 7. Towards Utopias of Prefigurative Politics and Food Sovereignty: Experiences of Politicised Peasant Food Production Nave Wald 8. Re-Wilding Food Systems: Visceralities, Utopias, Pragmatism, and Practice Michael Carolan Part 3: Food, Ethics and Morality 9. Sketching a Global Agro-Ecology Eutopia: The Land Institute in Directional Context John W. Head 10. Contradictions in Hope and Care: Technological Utopianism, Biosphere II and the Catholic Worker Farms Paul Stock 11. Spurlock's Vomit and Visible Food Utopias: Enacting a Positive Politics of Food Hugh Campbell Conclusion: An Invitation to Food Utopias 12. Food as Mediator: Opening the Dialogue around Food Paul Stock, Michael Carolan, and Christopher Rosin