Alternative Food Networks: Knowledge, Practice, and Politics

by David Goodman

Farmers’ markets, veggie boxes, local foods, organic products and Fair Trade goods – how have these once novel, "alternative" foods, and the people and networks supporting them, become increasingly familiar features of everyday consumption? Are the visions of "alternative worlds" built on ethics of sustainability, social justice, animal welfare and the aesthetic values of local food cultures and traditional crafts still credible now that these foods crowd supermarket shelves and other "mainstream" shopping outlets?
This timely book provides a critical review of the growth of alternative food networks and their struggle to defend their ethical and aesthetic values against the standardizing pressures of the corporate mainstream with its "placeless and nameless" global supply networks. It explores how these alternative movements are "making a difference" and their possible role as fears of global climate change and food insecurity intensify. It assesses the different experiences of these networks in three major arenas of food activism and Britain and Western Europe, the United States, and the global Fair Trade economy. This comparative perspective runs throughout the book to fully explore the progressive erosion of the interface between alternative and mainstream food provisioning. As the era of "cheap food" draws to a close, analysis of the limitations of market-based social change and the future of alternative food economies and localist food politics place this book at the cutting-edge of the field.
The book is thoroughly informed by contemporary social theory and interdisciplinary social scientific scholarship, formulates an integrative social practice framework to understand alternative food production-consumption, and offers a unique geographical reach in its case studies.

Genres: Food

321 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 29, 2011

About the author

David Goodman is an award-winning investigative journalist, author of seven books (including three NY Times bestsellers), and a contributing writer for Mother Jones. His most recent book, co-authored with his sister Amy Goodman (host of Democracy Now!), is Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times (Hyperion, paperback 2009), which profiles the movers and movements that have defended democracy in the U.S. and helped bring about the current historic electoral changes. David and Amy Goodman's first book, The Exception to the Rulers, was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the Top 50 Nonfiction Books of 2004, and Booksense chose it as the top nonfiction book of the 2004 election season.

David Goodman's articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Outside, The Nation, and many other publications. He has been featured on numerous radio and television news shows, including Democracy Now!, Fresh Air, CNN, and the PBS Lehrer News Hour. His reporting is included in the American Empire Project book, In the Name of Democracy (Metropolitan, 2005) and No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950-2000 (Africa World Press, 2007).

David lives with his wife, Sue Minter, and their two children in Vermont."

Reviews

[Alli · Rating 5 out of 5]

The authors do a superb job of problematizing the local/alternative/ethical/organic/fair-trade systems of provision, without falling into a fatalist cynicism. They argue, among other things, that moving away from a system based on certification standards and product labeling (think the USDA organic or FLO fair trade labels), we can then focus on the real solutions to the inequities of neoliberalism: place-based, reflexive, stakeholder-led processes. I highly recommend this to anyone who considers themselves a food activist of any walk.