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"A convincing roundup that demonstrates that the food movement is (finally) coming of age, The New Food Activism is a chronicle of a dozen important victories around agriculture, justice, public health, and more, which points the way toward a future in which food is increasingly a focus of crucial rights movements. A must-read for food organizers and their allies."—Mark Bittman, food columnist and author of How to Cook Everything
"People want to eat ethically, and to do that, they need to care about the well-being of workers throughout the food system. This book highlights a promising direction for food activism, one that puts the lived experience of those who grow, cook, and serve our food at the center of its call for systemic transformation."— Saru Jayaraman, author of Forked: A New Standard for American Dining
"The New Food Activism is one of the most important books on food this century. It is required, inspiring, and challenging reading for every student of food, every 'foodie,' as well as every grower, worker, and eater in today’s food system. In this groundbreaking book, the authors develop a powerful critique of our food system and our mainstream food movements. In the process, they provide diverse, inspiring examples of food activism that foreground race and class equity while pushing against industrial, corporate control of our food. This unique book and the food campaigns it analyzes are critical to the possibility of true food justice. This book nourishes new realities in our food system."—Seth Holmes, author of Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States
List of contents
Preface
1 • Introduction 1
Alison Hope Alkon and Julie Guthman
Part One
Regulatory Campaigns
2 • Taking a Different Tack: Pesticide Regulatory-Reform Activism in California
Jill Lindsey Harrison
3 • How Canadian Farmers Fought and Won the Battle against GM Wheat
Emily Eaton
4 • How Midas Lost Its Golden Touch: Neoliberalism and Activist Strategy in the Demise of Methyl Iodide in California
Julie Guthman and Sandy Brown
Part Two
Working For Workers
5 • Resetting the “Good Food” Table: Labor and Food Justice Alliances in Los Angeles
Joshua Sbicca
6 • Food Workers and Consumers Organizing Together for Food Justice
Joann Lo and Biko Koenig
7 • Farmworker-Led Food Movements Then and Now: United Farm Workers, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, and the Potential for Farm Labor Justice
Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern
Part Three
Collective Practices
8 • Collective Purchase: Food Cooperatives and Their Pursuit of Justice
Andrew Zitcer
9 • Cooperative Social Practices, Self-Determination, and the Struggle for Food Justice in Oakland and Chicago
Meleiza Figueroa and Alison Hope Alkon
10 • Urban Agriculture, Food Justice, and Neoliberal Urbanization: Rebuilding the Institution of Property
Michelle Glowa
11 • Boston’s Emerging Food Solidarity Economy
Penn Loh and Julian Agyeman
12 • Grounding the U.S. Food Movement: Bringing Land into Food Justice
Tanya M. Kerssen and Zoe W. Brent
13 • Conclusion: A New Food Politics
Alison Hope Alkon and Julie Guthman
Contributors
Index
About the author
Alison Hope Alkon is Associate Professor of Sociology and cofounder of the master’s degree program in food studies at the University of the Pacific. She is the author of Black, White, and Green: Farmers Markets, Race, and the Green Economy and coeditor of Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability.
Julie Guthman is Professor of Social Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California and Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism.
Summary
The New Food Activism explores how food activism can be pushed toward deeper and more complex engagement with social, racial, and economic justice and toward advocating for broader and more transformational shifts in the food system. Topics examined include struggles against pesticides and GMOs, efforts to improve workers’ pay and conditions throughout the food system, and ways to push food activism beyond its typical reliance on individualism, consumerism, and private property. The authors challenge and advance existing discourse on consumer trends, food movements, and the intersection of food with racial and economic inequalities.
Additional text
"The New Food Activism is both relevant and timely to ongoing academic conversations about food justice and the alternative food movement within the United States. . . . While this book adds to the critique of the alternative food movement by highlighting the ways in which it is apolitical and nonstrategic, its biggest impact is the illustration of the power of activism that is strategic, political, and collaborative."
