Nested relationships and the spatially distanced consumer in alternative pet food movements

Together at the Table explores alternative food movements within the context of broader social movements. Patricia Allen, at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of California–Santa Cruz, argues that alternative food movements have emerged because of an “increased knowledge of the agrifood system and an increased understanding that the system can be changed” (p.1). To make this argument, Allen focuses on agriculture in California and the United States because of their dominance in the world market. Allen begins with the assumption that our current agrifood system is not sustainable and that it cannot meet global food security needs. In order to “achieve ecological soundness and social justice” (p.16), the current agrifood system must be altered on three levels: environmental, social, and economic—echoing John Ikerd’s contention that sustainable agriculture must be “environmentally compatible, socially supportive, and commercially competitive.”1 Allen further contends that these changes take place inside the farm gate and beyond—paralleling Thomas Lyson’s suggestion that we shift from the current industrial agriculture paradigm and adopt a “civic agriculture” that better links farms and communities.2 Chapter two, “Perspectives on Alternative Food Movements,” effectively draws linkages between seemingly disparate social movements based on women’s suffrage, the environment, and alternative food. Allen also establishes that alternative food movements tend to be against capitalism and the disparities that result from the social stratification of wealth and power. Chapter three explores how those involved in these movements benefit by challenging the status quo. There are practical ramifications of improving the food security and welfare of consumers. By changing their consumption patterns, Allen argues that individuals make a political statement about the status of their food system. In doing so, consumers recognize their power to alter the food system and become more willing to participate in other social movements. Chapter four examines how alternative agrifood movements are embedded within the existing capitalist system and hence do not challenge that system. This, of course, belies a core pillar of this social movement—anticapitalism. Allen goes on to suggest that political ecology represents a viable framework for examining both the environmental and social aspects of the agrifood system. While this position may be true, Allen does not fully use this framework to explore complex issues like gender and ethnicity that affect every agrifood system, including those in California. Chapter five explores how alternative agrifood movements may reproduce the same systemic problems they are trying to demolish. Chapter six explains that this result can occur because participants in the alternative agrifood movement come from middle-class backgrounds. This chapter shows how closely aligned privilege and power are to empowerment and social change. As an anthropologist and geographer, respectively, the reviewers found this discussion lacking, as it did not fully explore the historical and geographical specifics of California and how the variables of gendered and ethnic landownership, migrant labor, and environmental assets have allowed the agrifood movements to flourish in this setting. In chapter seven, Allen addresses the concerns some have about localized food movements. She deftly explores asymmetries of power within and between communities based on differences in access to resources. In chapter eight, “The Politics of Sustainability and Sustenance,” Allen succinctly explains how current agricultural policy is formed and argues that the agrifood movement must work with the environmental movement to change agricultural policy. By joining forces, a stronger coalition can reach more people to “‘transcend particularities, and arrive at some conception of a universal alternative to that social system which is the source of their difficulties.’”3 The final chapter, “Working toward Sustainability and Sustenance,” addresses the failure of social movements like the agrifood movement to fully examine the differences between reform and transformation. If the alternative agrifood movement wants to avoid further institutionalization, it must speak to some of the core issues inherent to our agrifood system and devise ways in which to address them successfully. Scholars, consumers, and activists interested in the alternative food movement will find this book useful. Allen does a fine job of addressing her objective: “to offer information and insights that can contribute to the reflexive efforts of the alternative agrifood movement as it continues to develop” (p.19). Ultimately, Together at the Table enables one to think about the agrifood movement in a more holistic manner, question our individual roles in the food system, and analyze our consumer nature and place in the world.

The concept of the moral economy directs attention to the moral and ethical frameworks through which everyday decisions are framed and enacted. This chapter shows that by exposing the very real differences in the priorities and actions of EarthShare members, people can escape imaginings of local food systems as perfect or entirely free from ambiguity or conflict but still see them as sites of political potential. The chapter begins by introducing the concept of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and locating CSA within a broader literature on local food, moral economies and ethics of care. CSAs have been heralded as offering opportunities to strengthen place-based community relationships between food growers and eaters. Community Supported Agriculture has been identified specifically as a form of food production/consumption that can be characterised as caring practice. EarthShare is a not-for-profit co-operative organisation which was founded in 1994 in Forres near Inverness, Scotland. It is the longest running CSA in Britain.

The marketing of dog food influences pet-owners to nurture the ‘carnivorous’ nature of the dog, keeping animal-based protein central to the industry. Alas, dog food has a significant impact on welfare. Consumers are aware of this impact, shifting the industry towards alternative pet food movements such as Open Farm, the first certified humane food. This article examines the material and discursive practices through which ‘humaneness’ is constituted as a quality within the humane pet food supply chain and how it reinforces embedded animal hierarchies. By reviewing the marketing and history of commercial dog food production, I show how ‘caring’ for the carnivorous dog lays the framework for killing. I use Open Farm's transparency tool to trace the value chain and compare it with the imagery, discursive claims, and material practices found within the Global Animal Partnership standards. I argue that instead of questioning animal-based protein, humane certification creates an alternative in which the pet owner could still ‘care’ for the wildness of their domesticated dog while simultaneously ‘caring’ for farmed animals. Thus, it reinforces the hierarchies of the industry. Additionally, the validity of the humane claims depends on the animals’ charisma and proximity to humans. In other words, marketing in the humane dog food supply chain creates animal–animal positionalities, in which the animals’ care or killability is mediated through the humans’ supply chain and marketing. However, as I show with interview data, the hierarchies are fragile and must be continuously reinforced, as animals can slip into different positions. Their proximity to humans alters their positionality and their killability.

Alternative food movements have, from their origins, espoused values of social justice and environmental stewardship in an attempt to challenge existing economic and social norms related to food and farming. Three alternative food movements in North America exemplify the trade-offs between the three pillars of sustainable development: social equity, environment, and economy. Organic food has brought environmental benefits, but has struggled to challenge the status quo and promote the social benefits of the original movement when it goes to scale. Farmers’ markets have brought social and environmental benefits, but only in some cases reduced costs when compared to mainstream market levels. Consequently, good-quality food is often out of reach of low-income groups, as highlighted in a case study of access by underserved people in British Columbia, Canada. Regional food movements are a hybrid approach that balance some of the gains and some of the challenges of these systems. The extraordinary concentration of power in North American food systems stands in contrast to notions of social equity and undermines efforts to effect change in pursuit of sustainable alternative food systems.

El artículo examina cómo y hasta qué punto el Movimiento Alimentario Alternativo (afm, por su sigla en inglés), en sus diversas versiones, ha impactado en un espacio discursivo alimentario dominado y ordenado por el sistema alimentario global-industrial. El movimiento ha logrado muchas victorias particulares: huertas escolares, almuerzos de cafetería más saludables, cadenas de suministro alimentarias más cortas, etiquetamiento de productos locales, prácticas orgánicas de cultivo y al menos un poco de compostaje. Algunas personas ven el conjunto de estos triunfos como el comienzo de uno más grande y más general y están listas para dar testimonio acerca de cómo el afm podría haber sido “exitoso”. Por el contrario, este artículo argumenta cómo no lo ha sido. Aunque el afm reúne partidarios de muy diverso origen y prioridad, y goza de amplia atención como objeto de estudio (Ashe, 2013), propongo que el movimiento se ve profanado precisamente por su alteridad. Los logros tan celebrados del afm se hallan limitados por y al interior de una epistemología de la ceguera (Santos, 2009, 2014), y así, ciega a su intoxicación filosófica, los éxitos del movimiento solo refuerzan aquello que pretenden combatir. Ciertamente, lo que denuncio aquí no es la totalidad del relato del movimiento alimentario. La base empírica que tomo como ejemplo, la “alteridad” institucionalmente dirigida de la ciudad de Nueva York, más bien apunta a la sustancia del relato que la capte totalmente. Aun así, el ejemplo de Nueva York y todo lo que denuncio al respecto incluye a gran parte del afm, una sección poderosa que surge desde el interior de los centros epistémicos del sistema-mundo (Wallerstein, 2011) y goza de —o se ve agobiada por— todas las prerrogativas cognitivas, políticas, sociales y económicas que esto implica. No obstante, las historias de futilidad y fracaso no se cuentan ni se venden fácilmente, y estas son las partes de la realidad del movimiento alimentario alternativo de las que poco se habla. En este trabajo me pronuncio al respecto: el movimiento alimentario alternativo es un caballo de Troya, o al menos aquellas partes suyas vinculadas a las promesas epistémicas de los centros del sistema-mundo moderno.

The term community is frequently cited in the mission statements of alternative food projects, though what it signifies in vision and practice is rarely made explicit. This case study examines an alternative food market in a New Orleans neighborhood that operates a market that is modeled after CSA and on-site gardens. Based on ethnographic observation and interviews with gardeners, market staff, volunteers, customers, and local residents, this paper explores different views of community in relation to the market's practices. Data analysis identified four communities in relation to the organization: gardeners, conspicuous locavores, hipsters, and local residents. The paper shows how each has a distinct set of expectations for the organization's role in the and demonstrates that some of them value enhancement of social connections through their involvement with the organization more than others. The findings do not demonstrate a unified emerging around this organization; none of the communities has staked a claim yet on the organization. Some missed opportunities for bridging these communities can be attributed to the operational and physical structures of the organization, some of which, ironically, were intended to enhance involvement. On the basis of these findings, I conclude that the alternative food movement may not necessarily create a unified with shared goals, but this should not necessarily be considered a failure of building. I also call for alternative food scholarship and praxis to examine the movement's impact on individuals and groups beyond the core, committed members.

After more than three decades, the alternative food movement has developed multiple strategies, most of which are still struggling. This essay surveys the literature on six key alternative food movement (AFM) strategies, assessing their strengths and weaknesses before describing a novel strategy, the microfarm system, which is being implemented in north central Ohio. It argues that key omissions from most AFM scholarship and practices include sustained attention to training and supporting suc­cessful farmers, concerted efforts to help facilitate needed social networks or communities of prac­tices around alternative food developments, and forwarding a set of ambitions that do not appreci­ate the scale of existing food systems nor the limits of alternative food systems’ impact. It offers the microfarm system as an emerging approach to address these omissions.

This paper responds to concerns over a lack of diversity in alternative food movements by entertaining the possibility of understanding difference as a visceral process—a process of bodily feeling/sensation. Participatory research within and around the Slow Food (SF) movement reveals the complex role of feelings in motivating food actions and activism. On the whole, the cocreated data from this research illustrate that food is never ingested by itself: in the body, molecular connections develop between food and a countless array of other factors. Thus, food and food movements come to feel differently in different bodies as a result of inner-connected biological and social forces. In paying attention to such biosocial processes alternative food movements like SF may develop new under-standings as to why they activate some people to participate in alternative food practices while chilling others. Accordingly the paper suggests that attentiveness to visceral feeling could enhance the ability of food movements to mobilize across difference.

Born out of resistance to a faceless and essentially placeless food system, the alternative food movement has acquired a global reach. Now, in the early twenty-first century, the practice and politics of local food encompass everything from backyard (and front-yard) gardens, to national appellations, to calls for indigenous sovereignty. Organics are standardized, mass produced, and traded nationally and internationally. Fair trade products are familiar grocery store fare, their value represented by logos and their processes often dominated by multinationals. There are those who see these changes as evidence of the movement’s success. What was once an alternative vision has now moved into the mainstream, into popular (and global) awareness, bringing with it many enlightened values – care, ecology, sustainability, health, equity. There are others who see these changes as yet another demonstration of the power of market (or corporate) capitalism, its ability to commodify anything, underwrite neo-liberal policies, and reinforce the structures that gave rise to the original resistance. Frequently, opposing arguments (among practitioners, activists and academics) are as polarized and impassioned as the initial rhetoric that advocated ‘a turn toward the local’ and away from an industrial food system. But, there are problems with either/or thinking, with seeing the world only in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Not the least of these is the question of who gets to say – act on and enforce – what is and isn’t possible; who gets to decide what does or doesn’t matter. Stated a bit differently, such essentialist thinking can lead to a loss of critical insight into the behavioural and thought processes that play out in lived contexts as well as across the many levels of what hopefully will become a generative and socially just food system. Given the severity of the problems we face on this once blue-green planet and the essential nature of food to our survival, we really need to stop cleaving to simplistic images and attacking convenient straw men. We need to expand our thinking and our tool chest in ways that permit, no, I really mean continually enable, public discourse and engaged citizenship. We also need to learn how to listen. Alternative Food Networks: Knowledge, Practice and Politics is a bold step in this direction. From the outset, authors Goodman, DuPuis and Goodman explain that they want to steer a course between arguments of food system conventionalization and accounts celebrating the tenacity and virtuosity of the alternative vision. As they put it:

Summary Introduction The aims of this thesis are twofold; firstly, it aims to increase the understanding of the extent to which community gardens enhance social cohesion for those involved; secondly, it aims to gain insight into the importance community gardeners attach to food growing per se, and the extent to which participants perceive community gardens as an alternative to the industrial food system. I define community gardens as a plot of land in an urban area, cultivated either communally or individually by people from the direct neighbourhood or the wider city, or in which urbanites are involved in other ways than gardening, and to which there is a collective element. Over the last years, community gardens have sprung up in several Dutch cities. Although there are various reasons for an increasing interest in community gardens, there are two that I focus on in this thesis in particular. The first is the assumption made that community gardens stimulate social cohesion in inner-city neighbourhoods, to be seen in the light of the 'participatory society'. The second is community gardens' contribution to the availability of locally produced food, in the context of an increased interest in Alternative Food Networks (AFNs). The Dutch government aims to transform the Dutch welfare state into a participatory society in which citizens take more responsibility for their social and physical environment. This way the government not only hopes to limit public spending, but also wishes to increase social bonding and the self-organisational capacity of society. Community gardens fit the rhetoric around the participatory society, as they are examples of organised residents taking responsibility for their living environment. Moreover, the literature suggests that gardens are physical interventions that may decrease isolation by acting as meeting places. However, both the extent to which community gardens enhance social cohesion and under what conditions they may do so are unclear, especially as gardens come in various designs, shapes and sizes. The popularity of community gardens also seems to be related to an overall increasing societal interest in food, and can be discussed in relation to Alternative Food Networks. AFNs are food systems that are different in some way from the mainstream, and are seen as a reaction to consumer concerns about the conventional food system. They are often considered to be dictated by political motivations and injected with a 'deeper morality'. The category 'AFN' is however a heterogeneous category, as is the conventional food system; neither can be easily defined. The degree to which community gardens can be seen as AFNs is therefore unclear. While they do improve the availability of local food and operate outside of the market economy, we do not know how much and how often people eat from their gardens, nor do we know to what extent they are involved in the gardens in order to provide an alternative to the industrial food system. Hence, there is a lack of knowledge about the sense in which community gardens are alternative alternatives. Research questions The overall research question of this thesis is: What is the significance of community gardening in terms of its intention to promote social cohesion as well as its representation as an alternative food system? This broad question is instructed by the following sub-questions: Why do people get involved in community gardens? What are their motivations?How, to what extent, and under which conditions does community gardening promote the development of social relations between participants? How do participants value these social effects? To what extent do the diets of community garden participants originate from the gardens in which they are involved? What is the importance of food in community gardens?What is the importance of growing or getting access to alternative food for participants of community gardens? Methodology An important theoretical lens in this research is the theory of practice. Practices are defined as concrete human activity and include things, bodily doings and sayings. By performing practices people not only draw upon but also feed into structure. Routinisation – of practices, but also of daily life – therefore plays a central role in practice theory. Practice theory allows for an emphasis on practical reality as well as a study of motivations. This focus on how people manage everyday life, and how gardening fits within that, makes it particularly useful for this thesis. I define social cohesion as the way in which people in a society feel and are connected to each other (De Kam and Needham 2003) and operationalised it by focusing on 'social contacts, social networks, and social capital', one of the elements into which social cohesion is often broken up. This element was operationalised as 1) contacts (the width of social cohesion) and 2) mutual help (the depth of social cohesion). This research has a case study design; I studied four Dutch community gardens over a two-year period of time, and later supplemented these with an additional three cases. As practices consist of both doings and sayings, analysis must be concerned with both practical activity and its representation. I used participant observations to study practical activities, and interviews, questionnaires and document study to examine the representation of these activities. Findings Chapters 3 to 7 form the main part of this thesis. They are papers/book chapters that have been submitted to or are published by scientific journals or books. All of them are based on the field work. In chapter 3 we compare two of the case studies and determine to what extent they can be seen as 'alternative'. We argue that although reflexive motivations are present, most participants are unwilling to frame their involvement as political, and mundane motivations play an important role in people's involvement as well. By using the concept of 'food provisioning practices' we show that participants of community gardens are often required to be actively involved in the production of their food. This means that participants are both producers and consumers: the gardens show a 'sliding scale of producership'. This chapter also shows that political statements are not a perfect predictor of actual involvement in community gardening. This finding was one of the main reasons for starting to use the theory of practice, which is the main topic of the next chapter. In chapter 4 we compare one of my case studies with an urban food growing initiative in New York City. By comparing the internal dynamics of these two cases and their relations with other social practices, we investigate whether different urban food growing initiatives can be seen as variations of one single practice. We also study the question of whether the practice can be seen as emerging. In particular, we take the elements of meaning, competences and material (Shove et al. 2012) into account. We found both similarities and differences between the two cases, with the main difference relating to the meanings practitioners attach to the practice. We conclude, therefore, that it is not fully convincing to see these cases as examples of the same social practice. We also argue that urban food growing may be considered an emerging practice, because it combines various practices, both new and established, under one single heading. In chapter 5 we use the theory of practice to explore how urban food growing is interwoven with everyday life. We compare four community gardens - two allotments and two cases which we define as AFNs. We found that participants of the allotments are involved in the practice of gardening, while members of the AFNs are involved in the practice of shopping. The gardening practice requires structural engagement, turning it into a routine. The produce is a result of that routine and is easily integrated into daily meals. As AFNs are associated with the practice of shopping, they remain in competition with more convenient food acquisition venues. Eating from these gardens is therefore less easily integrated in daily life; every visit to the garden requires a conscious decision. Hence, whether members are primarily involved in shopping or in growing has an impact on the degree to which they eat urban-grown food. This shows that motivations are embedded in the context and routine of everyday life, and 'only go so far'. Chapter 6 concerns the organisational differences between the seven case studies in this thesis and the extent to which these influence the enhancement of social cohesion. We study people's motivations for being involved in the gardens and compare these with the three main organisational differences. This comparison reveals that the gardens can be divided into place-based and interest-based gardens. Place-based gardens are those in which people participate for social reasons – aiming to create social bonds in the neighbourhood. Interest-based gardens are those in which people participate because they enjoy growing vegetables. Nevertheless, all of these gardens contribute to the development of social cohesion. Moreover, while participants who are motivated by the social aspects of gardening show a higher level of appreciation for them, these social aspects also bring added value for those participants who are motivated primarily by growing vegetables. In chapter 7 we present a garden that exemplifies that gardens may encompass not only one, but indeed several communities, and that rapprochement and separation take place simultaneously. While this garden is an important meeting place, thereby contributing to social cohesion, it harbours two distinct communities. These communities assign others to categories ('us' and 'them') on the basis of place of residence, thereby strengthening their own social identities. Ownership over the garden is both an outcome and a tool in that struggle. We define the relationship between these two communities as instrumental-rational – referring to roles rather than individuals - which explains why they do not form a larger unity. Nevertheless, the two communities show the potential to develop into a larger imagined garden-community. Conclusions This thesis shows that the different organisational set-ups of community gardens reflect gardeners' different motivations for being involved in these gardens. The gardens studied in this thesis can be defined as either place-based or interest-based; gardens in the first category are focused on the social benefits of gardening, whereas gardens in the second category are focused on gardening and vegetables. Nevertheless, social effects occur in both types of gardens; in all of the gardens studied, participants meet and get to know others and value these contacts. Based on this finding, I conclude that community gardens do indeed enhance social cohesion. Place-based community gardens specifically have the potential to become important meeting places; they offer the opportunity to work communally towards a common goal, and once established, can develop into neighbourhood spaces to be used for various other shared activities. Most interest-based gardens lack opportunities to develop the social contacts that originated at the garden beyond the borders of the garden. These gardens are often maintained by people who do not live close to the garden or to each other, and those who garden are generally less motivated by social motivations per se. Important to note is that community gardens do not necessarily foster a more inclusive society; they often attract people with relatively similar socio-economic backgrounds and may support not one, but several communities. Most participants from place-based gardens eat from their gardens only occasionally; others never do so. This type of community garden can therefore hardly be seen as a reaction to the industrialised food system, let alone an attempt to create an alternative food system. Nevertheless, certain aspects of these gardens are in line with the alternative rhetoric. By contrast, most gardeners at interest-based gardens eat a substantial amount of food from their gardens, and to some of them the choice to consume this locally-grown food relates to a lifestyle in which environmental considerations play a role. However, this reflexivity is not expressed in political terms and participants do not see themselves as part of a food movement. Participants who buy rather than grow produce showed the greatest tendency to explain their involvement in political terms, but many of them have difficulty including the produce in their diets on a regular basis. I therefore conclude that community gardens cannot be seen as conscious, 'alternative' alternatives to the industrial food system. Nonetheless, the role of food in these gardens is essential, as it is what brings participants together – either because they enjoy gardening or because the activities which are organised there centre around food. Theoretical contributions In this thesis I used and aimed to contribute to the theory of practice. Using participant observations to study what people do in reality was particularly useful. It turned research into an embodied activity, enabling me to truly 'live the practice', and therefore to understand it from the inside. Deconstructing the practice of food provisioning into activities such as buying, growing and cooking was helpful in gaining an understanding of how people manage everyday life, and how food acquisitioning fits into their everyday rhythms. It sheds light on how and to what extent people experience the practice of community gardening as a food acquisitioning practice, and to what degree they relate it to other elements of food provisioning such as cooking and eating. The focus on the separate elements of food provisioning practices helped me realise that acquiring food from community gardens represents a different practice to different people; some are engaged in the practice of growing food, others in the practice of shopping for food. This thesis showed that motivations delineate how the practice 'works out in practice'; the way in which a practice such as community gardening is given shape attracts people with certain motivations, who, by reproducing that practice, increase the attractiveness of the practice for others with similar motivations. This implies that while community gardening appears to be one practice, it should in fact be interpreted as several distinct practices, such as the practice of food growing or the practice of social gathering. Motivations therefore influence a garden's benefits and outcomes. This thesis thus highlights that motivations should not be overlooked when studying practices. Apprehending the motivations of community gardeners is also an important contribution to the literature around AFNs, since it helps us to understand the extent to which urban food production is truly alternative. By studying motivations, this thesis reveals that AFNs do not necessarily represent a deeper morality, or that not all food growing initiatives in the city can be defined as alternative. However, participants of community gardens are often both producers and consumers (there is a 'sliding scale of producership'); the gardens are thus largely independent from the conventional food system. Moreover, for participants who buy produce, the meaning of the gardens often goes beyond an economic logic (there is a 'sliding scale of marketness'). Hence, while the gardens studied in this thesis are no alternative alternatives, most of them can be qualified as 'actually existing alternatives' (after Jehlicka and Smith 2011). This thesis showed that even those gardens in which the commodification of food is being challenged do not necessarily represent a deeper morality, which is contrary to what is argued by Watts et al. (2005). This implies that understanding whether or not initiatives resist incorporation into the food system is insufficient to be able to determine whether or not they can be defined as alternative food networks. However, determining whether or not deeper moral reflection is present is not a satisfactory way of defining food networks as alternative either, as this neglects the fact that motivations do not always overlap with practical reality. This suggests that establishing whether a food network can be regarded as alternative requires studying both motivations and practical reality. The thesis also raises the question to what extent the label AFN is still useful. Since it is unclear what 'alternative' means exactly, it is also unclear whether a given initiative can be considered alternative. Moreover, the world of food seems too complex to be represented by a dichotomy between alternative and conventional food systems; the gardens presented in this thesis are diverse and carry characteristics of both systems. I therefore suggest considering replacing the term AFN with that of civic food networks, as Renting et al. (2012) advocate.

In an article about Mayor Bloomberg’s court-challenged soda size limit—popularly known as the soda ban—on the food politics blog Civil Eats, Maureen Beach (2013) of the American Beverage Association posted the following comment: ‘‘Government regulation is the wrong approach to the obesity challenge. Education is the only effective tool. Education about balancing calories with physical activity will do more for fighting obesity than a new law that restricts consumer choice and hurts small businesses.’’ Here, ‘‘education’’ is invoked as a neutral and apolitical activity; in Eating Right in America: The Cultural Politics of Food and Health, Charlotte Biltekoff shows that nutrition education is, and always has been, anything but. In this book, Biltekoff presents four distinct nutrition education movements in the United States’ past and present: the ‘‘modern dietary reform’’ movement of the late 19th century, when the science of nutrition made it possible to quantitatively measure nutrients and empirically define a ‘‘good diet’’; the nutrition education component of World War II home front mobilization, which tied eating well to wartime patriotism; the ‘‘alternative food’’ movement and its focus on repudiating the industrial food chain and eating locally and organically; and the current campaign against obesity and the association between thinness and health. Biltekoff’s main argument is that an era’s particular ideas for eating right are not only an empirical set of rules for nutrition and health, but also a framework for good citizenship, and a way in which the middle class asserts its identity by contrasting its healthful behavior against that of an ‘‘unhealthy other.’’ Each nutrition education paradigm is given its own chapter; the movements are described in their historical context and the author shows how nutrition education reflects ideas of good citizenship and draws the boundaries of middle class identity. By examining the dietary reform movements with this template, Biltekoff highlights historical antecedents for the ways we think about and promote food and nutrition today. The final two chapters deal with present-day nutrition paradigms and Eating Right in America draws out the historical continuity between them and older styles of food education. Though the alternative food movement attempts to set itself apart by emphasizing both the pleasures of ‘‘good’’ food and the ethics of food choices, rather than focusing on calories and nutrients, Biltekoff notes that the rules provided for what to eat are ‘‘no less normalizing’’ (p 107) than the movements that came before. The chapter on the antiobesity movement illustrates the launch of the ‘‘war on obesity’’ in parallel to America’s war on terror after September 11, 2001. By drawing out the ways that being thin and fit were coded as a patriotic duty, the current moment in food instruction, in turn, mirrors the WWII-era National Nutrition Program. Although this book is successful in making the clear and well-argued point that nutrition education is a reflection of broader cultural anxieties around citizenship and class dynamics, it feels as though it is missing a chapter. Though presented as a history of nutrition education movements in America, it leaps rather quickly from the WWII-era National Nutrition Program to the late 20th and early 21st century concerns with alternative food and the antiobesity crusade. Though Eating Right in America includes a few paragraphs describing what the alternative food movement is actually an alternative to, the reader is left wondering about the role of nutrition education and dietary reformers during the massive changes in agriculture, food retail, and food industry product development from the 1950s to the 1990s. What food and health paradigms underscored the D. Kornfeld (&) GSAPP, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA e-mail: dk2453@columbia.edu

Despite aspirations toward more equitable and sustainable food systems, alternative food movements have been critiqued for reproducing the inequalities of the agrifood system they contest. This article examines the challenges a group of justice‐oriented food hubs face in integrating racial justice into their work. We ask whether the financial pressures of enacting alternative approaches to food hub work within market logics can squeeze out racial justice goals. We find that dominant framings of alternative food movements diminish Black activism. We argue that justice‐oriented food hubs can get caught in a “justice trap” similar to the “local trap”—the tendency to assume that the local scale is inherently desirable and leads to a socially just food system. The notion of a justice trap signals the assumption that what constitutes justice in the food system is self‐evident and that different forms of justice are automatically subsumed within the general concept of “food justice.” Our analysis indicates that the justice trap arises from an inability to articulate the racial justice implications of the everyday realities of running organizations within the market logics that dominate even alternative food movements.

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of alternative food movements responding to growing dissatisfaction with the global, industrial, and corporate food system. In particular, scholars and activists have called for a re-localization of food systems as a way to foster health, justice, sustainability and other goals. Although a growing scholarship views food initiatives that shorten supply chains, such as farmers markets and community gardens, as forms of resistance against the capitalist pressures that strain the food system, other researchers provide evidence indicating that these have become increasingly popular among affluent and white urban residents. Such contradiction puts into question the claim that local food will foster democracy and justice. This article builds upon recent geographic research on scale and urban governance to explore the growth of local food practices in urban southern California and their role in resisting, challenging and reproducing neoliberal urban agendas. We focus specifically on farmers’ markets, which have grown exponentially. After investigating their geographic distribution in the County of San Diego, we turn our analytical gaze to three markets that uniquely illustrate the ambivalent relationships between neoliberal urbanism and alternative food systems. Conceptualizing the local scale as a strategy, we pay particular attention to the agenda of institutional actors in supporting alternative food initiatives and their role in reshaping cities along the lines of race and class. The research combines quantitative and qualitative data, including interviews of community stakeholders, to map the changing landscape of alternative food practices and the contradictions local actors face in creating a more just city.

This article considers the perils and potential of an increasingly popular alternative food commodity: heritage and heirloom foods. Drawing on ethnographic research with Black Beluga lentil farmers in Montana, I develop a process-based means of conceptualizing heritage agriculture, to avoid the pitfalls of simply reifying old crop varieties. This article makes three contributions to scholarship on alternative food commodities: (1) modeling a method of generative critique of alternative food movements that are in danger of being undermined by their articulation as commodity markets, (2) demonstrating how feminist ethnography of situated knowledge production can provide insight into processes of cross-species learning through which alternative food systems are created and sustained, and (3) suggesting that a reflexive approach to alternative food movement praxis is the best means of fostering environmental sustainability and social justice.

The ethical and political discourse around food production and consumption is increasingly focused on the systems that provide the food that we eat. The predominant “industrial” or “global” food system has received a barrage of criticism in recent years, including that it displaces smallholding farmers, exploits workers, undermines cultural practices, disrupts rural communities, degrades the environment, promotes unhealthy eating, empowers corporations over individuals, causes animal suffering, diminishes food autonomy and security, and reduces the aesthetic quality of food. Critics of the global food system argue that we ought to reject the system in favor of shorter food supply chains, more local and regional food systems, which engender responsibility and empower smaller producers, workers, communities, families, and individuals. However, the “alternative food movement” has itself been subject to large amounts of criticism on the grounds that its food system vision would actually reduce food security, diminish diet quality, decrease food access, and make our diets less aesthetically interesting. Moreover, the movement has been charged with being classist, valorizing elitist ideas about “good food”, and promoting a false nostalgia about pre-industrial food conditions and practices. In this paper I provide a brief overview of the global food system and alternative food movement before discussing the ethical perspectives embedded in the cross system critiques. I suggest that proponents of the alternative food movement prioritize one type of ethical concern – recognition and respect – while proponents of the global food system prioritize another – bringing about overall beneficial outcomes. I then explore how a third ethical outlook – virtue-oriented ethics – might approach the food system issue. I suggest that a virtue-oriented approach is useful for identifying both insights and limitations of positions in the food system debate.