Rewilding Food And The Self

This volume contributes to the return to nature movement that is very much in vogue in contemporary European societies, by examining the place of food and eating in the "rewilding" process. It is divided into three parts, each of which consists of conversations between social scientists, with fieldwork collected from across Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Norway and Switzerland. The first part focuses on the ways in which the hunter-gatherer livelihood has been transformed into a resilient, simpler and ecological way of life. It is dedicated to hunting and identifies the contexts in which large wild game meat is consumed and the reasons why such a product is still valued today. The second part shows how some practices that aim to reconnect with natural processes are developing within a market economy. Case studies on natural wine and fasting retreats help us to identify the promises that producers and promoters are relying on in order to disseminate them. Finally, the third part considers how this process of rewilding food is expressed in post-modernity. By focusing on two normative frameworks in which the rhetoric of the wild is mobilized although it is not expected to be in these terms – urbanity and the gender order – the goal is to understand the extent to which referring to the wild in food discourses and practices contributes to challenging our identities, and to creating possible forms of emancipation. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars interested in food cultures, human nature relationships, and sustainable diets.

This book presents URBAL, an approach that applies impact pathway mapping to understand how food system innovations in cities, and their territories, change and impact food system sustainability. Around the world, people are finding innovative ways to make their food systems more sustainable. However, documenting and understanding how these innovations impact the sustainability of food system can be a challenge. The Urban Driven Innovations for Sustainable Food Systems (URBAL) methodology responds to these constraints by providing innovations with a simple, open-source, resource-efficient tool that is easily appropriated and adaptable to different contexts. URBAL is designed to respond to the demands of field stakeholders, whether public or private, to accompany and guide them in their actions and decision-making with regard to sustainability objectives. This book presents this qualitative and participatory impact assessment method of food innovations and applies it to several cases of food innovation around the world, including the impact of agricultural districts in Milan, chefs and gastronomy in Brasilia, e-commerce in Vietnam, eco-friendly farm systems in Berlin and The Nourish to Flourish governance process in Cape Town. The book demonstrates how food innovations can impact different dimensions of sustainability, positively and negatively, and identify the elements that facilitate or hinder these impacts. The volume reflects on how to strengthen the capacity of these stakeholders to disseminate their innovations on other scales to contribute to the transition towards more sustainable food systems. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars working on sustainable food systems, urban food, food innovation and impact assessment, as well as policymakers, practitioners and funders interested in these areas.

This book examines a diverse range of community food initiatives in light of their everyday practices, innovations, and contestations. While community food initiatives aim to tackle issues like food security, food waste, or food poverty, it is a cause for concern for many when they are framed as the next big "solution" to the problems of the current industrialised food system. They have been critiqued for being too neoliberal, elitist, and localist; for not challenging structural inequalities (e.g. racism, privilege, exclusion, colonialism, capitalism); and for reproducing these inequalities within their own contexts. This edited volume examines the everyday realities of community food initiatives, focusing on both their hopes and their troubles, their limitations and failures, but also their best intentions, missions, and models, alongside their capacity to create hope in difficult times. The stories presented in this book are grounded in contemporary theoretical debates on neoliberalism, diverse economies, food justice, community and inclusion, and social innovation, and help to sharpen these as conceptual tools for interrogating community food initiatives as sites of both hope and trouble. The novelty of this volume is its focus on the everyday doings of these initiatives in particular places and contexts, with different constraints and opportunities. This grounded, relational, and place-based approach allows us to move beyond more traditional framings in which community food initiatives are either applauded for their potential or criticized for their limitations. It enables researchers and practitioners to explore how community food initiatives can realize their potential for creating alternative food futures and generates innovative pathways for theorising the mutual interplay of food production and consumption. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of critical food studies, food security, public health, and nutrition as well as human geographers, sociologists, and anthropologists with an interest in food.

This book introduces critical mapping as a problematizing, reflective approach for analyzing systemic societal problems like food, scoping out existing solutions, and finding opportunities for sustainable design intervention. This book puts forth a framework entitled "wicked solutions" that can be applied to determine issues that designers should address to make real differences in the world and yield sustainable change. The book assesses the current role of design in attaining food security in a sustainable, equitable, and just manner. Accomplishing this goal is not simple; if it was, it would not be called a wicked problem. But this book shows how a particular repertoire of design tools can be deployed to find solutions and strategize the development of novel outcomes within a complex and interconnected terrain. To address the wicked problem of food insecurity, inequity, and injustice, this book highlights 73 peer-reviewed design outcomes that epitomize sustainable food design. This includes local and regional sustainable design outcomes funded or supported by public or private institutions and local and widespread design outcomes created by citizens. In doing so, this book sets the stage for an evidence-driven and evidence-informed design future that facilitates the designers’ visualization of wicked solutions to complex social problems, such as food insecurity. Drawing on an array of case studies from across the world, from urban rooftop farms and community cookers to mobile apps and food design cards, this book provides vitally important information about existing sustainable food design outcomes in a way that is organized, accessible, and informative. This book will be of great interest to academics and professionals working in the field of design and sustainable food systems. Students interested in learning about food and sustainability from across design studies, food studies, innovation and entrepreneurship, urban studies, and global development will also find this book of great use.

This book examines suburban development in New Zealand and its conflict with and impact on local horticulture and food security. Drawing on an ethnographic study of Auckland’s rapidly expanding urban periphery, combined with comparative case studies from California in the USA and Victoria in Australia, the book examines how the profit-making strategies of property developers and landowners drastically reshapes work and life at the edge of cities. With a significant portion of the world's croplands lying adjacent to cities, the accelerating pace of urban sprawl across the planet places unprecedented pressure on the productivity and even existence of these vital food bowl regions. The book examines how the demand for more land for development at the urban periphery collides with concerns over local food security and the protection of ecosystem services. It analyses land use policy, historical records, and physical patterns of development, alongside participant observation of local events. It combines this with interviews with government officials, property developers, landowners, local residents and horticulturists. By combining these narratives of the hectic and lucrative business of suburban property development with the collapse of local horticulture, this book shows how the realignment of the New Zealand's interests of financial profitability over other concerns led to the transformation of urban peripheries from a productive food bowl to an investment vehicle. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of urban food and agriculture, urban planning and development and rural-urban studies.

This book brings together a unique collection of chapters to facilitate a broad discussion on food education that will stimulate readers to think about key policies, recent research, curriculum positions and how to engage with key stakeholders about the future of food. Food education has gained much attention because the challenges that influence food availability and eating in schools also extend beyond the school gate. Accordingly, this book establishes evidence-based arguments that recognise the many facets of food education, and reveal how learning through a future's lens and joined-up thinking is critical for shaping intergenerational fairness concerning food futures in education and society. This book is distinctive through its multidisciplinary collection of chapters on food education with a particular focus on the Global North, with case studies from England, Australia, the Republic of Ireland, the United States of America, Canada and Germany. With a focus on three key themes and a rigorous food futures framework, the book is structured into three sections: (i) food education, pedagogy and curriculum, (ii) knowledge and skill diversity associated with food and health learning and (iii) food education inclusivity, culture and agency. Overall, this volume extends and challenges current research and theory in the area of food education and food pedagogy and offers insight and tangible benefits for the future development of food education policies and curricula. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, policymakers and education leaders working on food education and pedagogy, food policy, health and diet and the sociology of food.

This book examines policy responses to food waste and loss, an issue of significant, global concern, with one-third of food produced for human consumption lost or wasted. Investigating food waste and loss under an interdisciplinary lens, the contributors employ a variety of methodological approaches, including quantitative and qualitative techniques, drawing on in-depth case studies and action research. The volume is organised into four parts: Understanding Food Loss and Waste, International Programmes, National Policies and Local Initiatives. The first part introduces the reader to the concept of food loss and waste, how it can be measured, its causes and consequences, and how it can be reduced. The second part is dedicated to international and cross-country case studies, with six chapters reviewing national policies implemented in France, Italy, Romania, Japan, China and the United States. In Part Four, three chapters are dedicated to local food recovery and redistribution initiatives. By focusing on different territories and different levels of governance, the book provides a detailed evaluation of food loss and waste policies, the barriers and opportunities of implementing the policies, as well as the impact they are actually having. The chapters are both descriptive and evaluative and draw out lessons for designing, implementing and reforming programmes. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars working on food waste, food policy, sustainable food systems, agricultural production and supply chains and public policy, as well as policymakers involved with developing and implementing programmes and policies to regulate and reduce food waste and loss.

As an investigative journalist, Monbiot found a mission in his ecological boredom, that of learning what it might take to impose a greater state of harmony between himself and nature. He was not one to romanticize undisturbed, primal landscapes, but rather in his attempts to satisfy his cravings for a richer, more authentic life, he came stumbled into the world of restoration and rewilding. When these concepts were first introduced in 2011, very recently, they focused on releasing captive animals into the wild. Soon the definition expanded to describe the reintroduction of animal and plant species to habitats from which they had been excised. Some people began using it to mean the rehabilitation not just of particular species, but of entire ecosystems: a restoration of wilderness. Rewilding recognizes that nature consists not just of a collection of species but also of their ever-shifting relationships with each other and with the physical environment. Ecologists have shown how the dynamics within communities are affected by even the seemingly minor changes in species assemblages. Predators and large herbivores have transformed entire landscapes, from the nature of the soil to the flow of rivers, the chemistry of the oceans, and the composition of the atmosphere. The complexity of earth systems is seemingly boundless."