Voice and Participation in Global Food Politics
As awareness of the commodification of food for profit at the expense of our health and the planet grows, this book foregrounds the communicative dimensions of resistance by food movements.
Voice and participation are argued by the author to be the means through which rural and urban communities can, and in many cases do, resist the capture of value by corporate actors and work to democratise their foodscapes. Her critical analysis of meaning-making under neo-liberalism suggests that agroecology, as a socially activating form of agriculture within a food sovereignty framework, provides an example of social learning relevant across rural/urban and North/South divides. Embracing indigenous knowledge, gender equity and postcolonial theory, this approach mobilises growers and eaters to contest the power structures that shape their food environments, and also to focus on social and economic justice within their communities, particularly in the context of climate change.
Participatory ecologies that incorporate these forms of social learning encourage the co-creation of inclusive foodscapes and politicise food justice. Such a positive framing of resistance through horizontal pedagogy, participation, communication and social learning processes contrasts with the vertical dissemination structure of the corporatised food regime and takes vital steps towards a more democratic food system.
Voice and Participation in Global Food Politics will be of interest to scholars of agri-food, transdisciplinary food studies and political economy of food systems. It will also be of relevance to NGOs and policymakers.
Alana Mann is Chair of the Department of Media and Communications within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on the engagement of citizens and non-state actors in activism and policy debates to inform the creation of just and sustainable food systems.
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Voice and Participation in Global Food Politics
Alana Mann
For further details please visit the series page on the Routledge website: www.routledge.com/books/series/RSFSE/
Voice and Participation in Global Food Politics
Alana Mann
First published 2019
by Routledge
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2019 Alana Mann
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mann, Alana, author.
Title: Voice and participation in global food politics / Alana Mann.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Series: Routledge studies in food, society and the environment | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018060190 | ISBN 9781138478343 (hardback) | ISBN 9781351068888 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Food sovereignty. | Nutrition policyCitizen participation. | Food industry and tradeEconomic aspects. | Food industry and tradeEnvironmental aspects. | Sustainable agriculture. | Right to food.
Classification: LCC HD9000.5 .M3335 2019 | DDC 338.1/9dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018060190
ISBN: 978-1-138-47834-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-06888-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
For Anne Dunn (19502012)
A beautiful voice.
Contents
This book is a response to the many voices that I have encountered in the course of my research on food movements. Families of the landless peoples movement (MST) living the struggle for land justice in roadside encampments in Brazil; political economists raging against a failed development model in Delhi; farmers growing healthy food for their communities on permaculture farms in Cork, and organipnicos in Cuba; peasants uniting with the urban poor to reclaim land and livelihoods in Thailand; and scores of people doing food differently in kitchens, gardens, and streets all over the world.
Not all these voices or their stories can be included in any one book but they have inspired and sustained the writing of this one. As has the support of the University of Sydney, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and particularly the Sydney Environment Institute led by Iain McCalman, David Scholsberg, and Michelle St Anne. In a competitive academic climate where rankings rule it is a privilege to do and share research that has a real impact on the well-being of all species and the environment. We need to keep doing it.
Much of the thinking, talking, and writing was done during my sabbatical at Cornell Universitys Department of Development Sociology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), and the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic within the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation (CHILPI). I thank all the colleagues, both here in Australia and abroad, who supported my visits.
Several diverse and equally enriching communities have been thought incubators for the arguments I present in this book the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, the Right to Food Coalition, the University of Sydneys Post-Truth Initiative, the Sydney Democracy Network, the Australia New Zealand Agri-food Network, the Symposium of Australian Gastronomy, the Australia New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA), and the International Association of Media and Communication Researchers (IAMCR). All these welcoming spaces encourage the unruly transdisciplinarity, and conviviality, that comes with dwelling in the liminal space where food, people, and the planet intersect.