Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Introducing Food Resistance Movements

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Food Resistance Movements

  • 306 Accesses

Abstract

Chapter 1 describes the motivations, diversity and growth of food resistance movements. Food resistance movements resist capitalist processes that perpetuate social and environmental injustices. This chapter contextualises food resistance movements within alternative food network literature. It recognises four key trajectories: alternative food networks from Europe, North America, the Global South, and social welfare approaches. Food resistance movements seek to establish alternatives that prioritise social justice and environmental sustainability values that go beyond elitist, individualist, racist and capitalist approaches. This book focuses on urban-based food resistance movements, representing potentially powerful sites for social mobilisation, experimentation and impactful solutions. After introducing the book’s case studies, this chapter situates the research approach in cultural anthropology to give a holistic and direct voice to participants from these diverse practices.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 49.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abrahams, C. 2006. Globally useful conceptions of Alternative Food Networks in the developing south: The case of Johannesburg’s urban food supply system. In Alternative food geographies: Representation and practice, ed. D. Maye and M. Kneafsey, 95–114. USA: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alaimo, K., E. Packnett, R. Miles, and D. Kruger. 2008. Fruit and vegetable intake among urban community gardeners. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behaviour 40 (2): 94–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alkon, Alison Hope. 2012. Black, white, and green: Farmers markets, race, and the green economy. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alkon, A., and J. Guthman. 2017. Introduction. In The new food activism: Opposition, cooperation, and collective action, ed. A. Alkon and J. Guthman, 1–27. Oakland: University of California.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Alkon, A., and C. McCullen. 2011. Whiteness and farmers markets: Performances, perpetuations … contestations? Antipode 43: 937–959.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen, P., M. FitzSimmons, M. Goodman, and K. Warner. 2003. Shifting plates in the agrifood landscape: The tectonics of alternative agrifood initiatives in California. Journal of Rural Studies 19: 61–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen, P. 2004. Together at the table: Sustainability and sustenance in the American Agri-food System. University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alvesson, Mats, and Kaj Sköldberg. 2000. Reflexive methodology. New vistas for qualitative research. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amin, A. 2002. Spatialities of globalisation. Environment and Planning A 34 (3): 385–399.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2009. Locating the social economy. In The social economy. International perspectives on economic solidarity, ed. A. Amin, 3–21. London and New York: Zed Books.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Arzubiaga, A., A.J. Artiles, K. King, and N. Harris-Murri. 2008. Beyond research on cultural minorities: Challenges and implications of research as situated cultural practice. Exceptional Children 74: 309–327.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barham, E. 2003. Translating terroir: The global challenge of French AOC labelling. Journal of Rural Studies 19 (1): 127–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Battersby, J. 2012. Beyond the food desert: Finding ways to speak about urban food security in South Africa. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 94 (2): 141–159.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Belasco, W. 1989. Appetite for change: How the counterculture took on the food industry. New York: Pantheon Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benato, M. 2020. 2020: A truly unimaginable year for biodiversity, The Guardian, 22 December. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/22/2020-a-truly-unimaginable-year-for-biodiversity-aoe. Accessed 11 April 2022.

  • Bonanno, A., and S.A. Wolf, eds. 2017. Resistance to the neoliberal agri-food regime: A critical analysis. Abingdon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Born, B., and M. Purcell. 2006. Avoiding the Local Trap: Scale and food systems in planning research. Journal of Planning, Education and Research 26 (2): December: 195-207.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boycott, R. 2008. Nine meals from anarchy—how Britain is facing a very real food crisis. Daily Mail, 7 June. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1024833/Nine-meals-anarchy%2D%2DBritain-facing-real-food-crisis.html#ixzz0UKZrhiiG. Accessed 2 October 2009.

  • Brückner, M. 2021. Learning degrowth through women’s food knowledge and care in Kenya. In Food for degrowth: Perspectives and practices, ed. A. Nelson and F. Edwards, 45–58. Abingdon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bulkeley, H. 2013. Cities and climate change. Oxon and New York: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Burgmann, V. 2003. Power, profit and protest: Australian social movements and globalisation. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carrier, James G., ed. 2012. A handbook of economic anthropology. 2nd ed. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carty, T., and J. McGrath. 2013. Growing Disruption: Climate change, food and the fight against hunger. Oxfam Issue Briefing, Oxfam International.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castells, M., and A. Portes. 1989. World underneath: The origins, dynamics, and effects of the informal economy. In The informal economy: Studies in advanced and less developed countries, ed. A. Portes, M. Castells, and L. Benton, 11–37. Baltimore: John Hopkins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cockrall-King, J. 2012. Food and the city: Urban agriculture and the new food revolution. New York: Prometheus Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Counihan, C., and V. Siniscalchi, eds. 2014. Food activism: Agency, democracy and economy. London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crush, J., A. Hovorka, and D. Tevera. 2011. Food security in southern African cities: The place of urban agriculture. Progress in Development Studies 11 (4): 285–305.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Denzin, Norman K. 1994. The art and politics of interpretation. In Handbook of qualitative research, ed. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, 500–515. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • DuPuis, E.M., and D. Goodman. 2005. Should we go ‘home’ to eat? Toward a reflexive politics of localism. Journal of Rural Studies 21: 359–371.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, F. 2005. Gleaning from gluttony: How a youth subculture consumes food waste to ascribe identity and attain social change. Master’s thesis. RMIT University, Melbourne.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2016a. Free-ing foods? Social food economies towards secure and sustainable food systems. In Untamed urbanisms: Practices and narratives on socio-environmental change for urban sustainability, ed. A. Allen, A. Lampis, and M. Swilling, 284–295. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2016b. Alternative food networks. In Encyclopaedia of food and agricultural ethics, ed. P. Thompson and D. Kaplan, 2nd ed., 1–7. New York, Heidelberg, Dortrecht, London: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_513-1.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • ETC Group. 2013. Poster: Who will feed us? The industrial food chain or the peasant food webs? http://www.etcgroup.org/content/poster-who-will-feed-usindustrial-food-chain-or-peasant-food-webs. Accessed 1 March 2014.

  • Feagan, R. 2007. The place of food: Mapping out the ‘local’ in local food systems. Progress in Human Geography 31 (1): 23–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feenstra, G. 2002. Creating space for sustainable food systems: Lessons from the field. Agriculture and Human Values 19: 99–106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fetterman, D.M. 2010. Ethnography: Step-by-step guide. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frankenberg, R. 1993. White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Frayne, W., Pendleton, J., Crush, B., Acquah, J., Battersby-Lennard, E., Bras, A. Chiweza, et al. 2010. The State of Urban Food Insecurity in Southern Africa. Urban Food Security Series 2. Queen’s University and African Food Security Urban Network, Kingston and Cape Town, South Africa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geertz, C. 1973. Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson-Graham, J.K. 2006. A postcapitalist politics. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, E. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodman, D. 2004. Rural europe redux? Reflections on alternative agro-food networks and paradigm change. Sociologia Ruralis 4 (1): 3–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodman, D., M. DuPuis, and M. Goodman. 2011. Alternative food networks: knowledge, practice and politics. Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gorman, J. 2011. A Diet for an Invaded Planet, New York Times, January 2. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/weekinreview/02gorman.html?_r=0. Accessed 2 May 2012.

  • Goss, J. 2004. Geography of consumption I. Progress in Human Geography 28 (3): 369–380.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gottlieb, Robert, and Anupama Joshi. 2010. Food justice. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Guthman, J. 2004. The trouble with ‘organic lite’ in California: A rejoiner to the ‘conventionalisation’ debate. Sociologia Ruralis 44 (3): July: 301-316.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2008. Bringing good food to others: Investigating the subjects of alternative food practice. Cultural Geographies 15: 431–447.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hammersley, M., and P. Atkinson. 2007. Ethnography. Principles in practice. 3rd ed. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harnecker, M. 2010. Latin America and twenty-first century socialism: Inventing to avoid mistakes. Monthly Review 62 (3): 1–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harris, E. 2009. Neoliberal subjectivities or a politics of the possible? Reading for difference in alternative food networks. Area 41 (1): 55–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes, C. 2008. Dietary implications of supermarket development: A global perspective. Development Policy Review 26 (6): 657–692.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hinrichs, C. 2000. Embeddedness and local food systems: Notes on two types of direct agricultural market. Journal of Rural Studies 16: 295–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2003. The practice and politics of food system localization. Journal of Rural Studies 19 (1): 33–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hislop, Rasheed. 2014. Reaping equity across the USA: FJ organizations observed at the national scale. Master’s thesis, University of California, Davis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hughes, Alex. 2005. Geographies of exchange and circulation: Alternative trading spaces. Progress in Human Geography 29 (4): 496–504.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ilbery, B., and M. Kneafsey. 2000. Registering regional speciality food and drink products in the United Kingdom: The case of PDOs and PGIs. Area 32 (3): 317–325.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnston, J., A. Biro, and N. MacKendrick. 2009. Lost in the supermarket: The corporate-organic foodscape and the struggle for democracy. Antipode 41 (3): 509–532.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kneafsey, M., B. Ilbery, and T. Jenkins. 2001. Exploring the dimensions of culture economies in rural West Wales. Sociologia Ruralis 41: 296–310.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kobayashi, A., and L. Peake. 2000. Racism out of place: Thoughts on whiteness and an anti-racist geography in the new millennium. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90: 392–403.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mann, A. 2014. Global activism in food politics: Power shift. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • May, N. 2022. Farmers’ report warns climate crisis puts Australia’s food supply at increasing risk, The Guardian, 8 March. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/09/farmers-report-warns-climate-crisis-puts-australias-food-supply-at-increasing-risk. Accessed 11 April 2022.

  • McClintock, N. 2014. Radical, reformist, and garden-variety neoliberal: Coming to terms with urban agriculture’s contradictions. Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability 19 (2): 147–171.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McMichael, P. 2001. The impact of globalisation, free trade and technology on food and nutrition in the new millennium. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 60: 215–220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mintz, S. 2006. Food at moderate speeds. In Fast Food/ Slow Food. The cultural economy of the global food system, ed. R. Wilk, 3–11. Lanham: Altamira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Patton, M.Q. 2001. Qualitative evaluation and research methods. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Payne, T. 2002. U.S. Farmers Markets—2000: A study of emerging trends. Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peet, R., and M. Watts, eds. 1996. Liberation ecologies: Environment, development, social movements. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Philips, L. 2006. Food and globalization. Annual Review of Anthropology 35: 37–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pollan, M. 2001. Behind the Organic-Industrial Complex. New York Times, 13 May.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ray, C. 1998. Culture, intellectual property and territorial rural development. Sociologia Ruralis 38: 3–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Renting, H., T. Marsden, and J. Banks. 2003. Understanding alternative food networks: Exploring the role of short food supply chains in rural development. Environment and Planning A 35: 393–411.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schneider, T., K. Eli, C. Dolan, and S. Ulijaszek, eds. 2019. Digital food activism. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shillington, L. 2013. Right to food, right to the city: Household urban agriculture, and socionatural metabolism in Managua, Nicaragua. Geoforum 44: 103–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slocum, R. 2007. Whiteness, space and alternative food practice. Geoforum 38: 520–533.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sonnino, R., and T. Marsden. 2006. Alternative Food Networks in the south west of England: Towards a new agrarian eco-economy? Research in Rural Sociology and Development 12: 299–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Szabo, Sylvia. 2016. Urbanisation and Food Insecurity Risks: Assessing the Role of Human Development. Oxford Development Studies 44 (1): 28–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600818.2015.1067292.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tilzey, M. 2018. Political ecology, food regimes, and food sovereignty: Crisis, resistance, and resilience. Coventry: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tregear, A. 2011. Progressing knowledge in alternative and local food networks: Critical reflections and a research agenda. Journal of Rural Studies 4 (27): 419–430.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Gennep, Arnold. 1909. Les rites de passage. French edition, Paris: Émile Nourry.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vidal, J. 2018. The 100 million city: Is 21st century urbanisation out of control? The Guardian, 19 March. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/19/urban-explosion-kinshasa-el-alto-growth-mexico-city-bangalore-lagos. Accessed 11 April 2022.

  • Wakefield, S., F. Yeudall, C. Taron, J. Reynods, and A. Skinner. 2007. Growing urban health: Community gardening in south-east Toronto. Health Promotion International 22 (2): 92–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • WHO. 2021. Obesity and overweight, World Health Organisation. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight. Accessed 26 March 2022.

  • Wilk, R. 2006. From wild weeds to artisanal cheese. In Fast food/slow food: The cultural economy of the global food system, ed. R. Wilk, 13–28. Lanham, MD: Altamira.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilk, R. 2019. Concluding comments: The essential ambiguity of the value of food. In Food values in Europe, ed. Valeria Siniscalchi and Krista Harper, 221–228. London: Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350084803.0024.

  • Wilson, A.D. 2013. Beyond alternative: Exploring the potential for autonomous food spaces. Antipode 45 (3): 719–737.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winter, M. 2003. Embeddedness, the new food economy and defensive localism. Journal of Rural Studies 19: 23–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Environment and Sustainability, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom

    Ferne Edwards

Authors
  1. Ferne Edwards
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ferne Edwards .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Edwards, F. (2023). Introducing Food Resistance Movements. In: Food Resistance Movements. Alternatives and Futures: Cultures, Practices, Activism and Utopias. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5795-6_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5795-6_1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-19-5794-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-19-5795-6

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation