Slow Journeys

Abstract

Established in the late 1980s, the Slow Food movement stated its interest in defending the pleasures of the table from the homogenization of fast food and fast lives. Because of this it has often been disregarded as yet another food and wine club, or misunderstood as a nostalgic desire for bourgeois living. By addressing this partial understanding of the movement, I wish to illustrate, through a case study of Marks and Spencer, the qualitative differences between fast and slow food cultures. I continue to reflect on slow food and draw out some of the resources the movement offers for the understanding of a wider practice of “slow” or slow living in general. Through a Foucauldian reading of care this piece aims to illustrate how “slow” can be cultivated and developed into a wider praxis that goes beyond the dinner table.